Honey Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting

Let them bee! Yesterday was #worldbeeday and to celebrate the event I’ve created a honey themed cupcake recipe to honour the celebration. While I’m a day late, this belated bee recipe is worth the wait, I promise!

Busy with an event hosted by Green Pea in collaboration with Eataly, we spent the day learning, gardening, educating others, and of course, eating! You can read about it here for all the details.

Today however was spent developing a flurry of honey-themed recipes that I’ll be sharing with you over the next few weeks. Experimenting with desserts, apps and mains, this star ingredient finds its way perfectly into quite a few tasty dishes. Plus, I’ll also be sharing how to use some flavoured honeys in unique ways...I’ve finally found a recipe where chestnut honey works seamlessly!

Anyways, back to the cupcakes! Though you could experiment with different flavoured honey, for this recipe I would recommend using something subtle and sweet like miele d'acacia, millefiori or sulla. They are milder in flavour and have more of that traditional honey taste that you would find from a honey back home in a supermarket...although you should really be buying your honey from a local vendor! It’s super easy to stock up when you take a drive up north or head to a local farmers market. Plus, real honey is incredible.

Despite the fact that I wanted to make mini ramekin cakes, I only have one ramekin and I couldn’t justify baking for six hours straight. So I decided to make cupcakes which are just as cute and bake more cake in less time! Lucky for me, I have a rose-shaped silicone mould so my honey cupcakes really took it a step further with the pollinator-friendly theme!

Because I’m obsessed with honey and mascarpone as you can see in other recipes, I figured why not incorporate it into this great recipe too? And you know what? It works flawlessly! A creamy mascarpone does wonders to neutralize the sweetest of the cupcake and also adds a bit of decadent. Though I added salt into the frosting itself, If I piped my icing into swirls, then I think adding some flecks of sea salt on top would also be spectacular instead!

Happy to enjoy my haul of honey baked goods, I shared these cupcakes with my neighbours and friends, but I think I might have to try and make this into a naked cake for my birthday in a couple weeks—stay tuned!

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Honey Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting

INGREDIENTS

Honey Cupcakes

• 3 cups flour

• 2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 cup butter (225 g), room temperature

• 1 cup muscovado sugar

• 1/2 cup white sugar

• 1/2 cup miele d'acacia

• 4 eggs, lightly beaten

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, plus 1/3 vanilla bean scraped

• 1 cup milk

Mascarpone and honey frosting

• 1 cup honey

• 2 teaspoons honey

• Pinch of salt

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.

2. In a bowl, whisk flour, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.

3. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugars together until creamy.

4. Mix in honey, eggs, vanilla and milk until well combined.

5. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, making sure not to over stir.

6. Line muffin tins and fill two-thirds full and bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown and your kitchen starts to smell sweet!

7. While the cupcakes are cooling, make frosting by mixing together the mascarpone, honey and salt. Keep in the fridge until ready to use.

8. Pipe the frosting onto a cooled cupcake, feel free to top with an extra drizzle of honey or some flecks of sea salt!