Love can come in many forms. It's not always sweet or loved by everyone but these durian cupcakes are ugly delicious in my love language.
Durian; you either love it or you hate it but I do know a few that are indifferent to it. It's okay if you hate it because that means more for me.
One of my favourite ways of enjoying durian is incorporating them into the cupcakes that I bake. You get the best of both worlds; you get cake and you get durian too.
Oven Setting:
160 degrees Celsius fan forced
175 degrees Celsius no fan
Cupcake ingredients (makes 24 cupcakes):
340g cake flour
320g sugar
1.5 tsp bicarb soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1.5 cups vegetable oil
120g eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp durian extract (optional)
2 tsp white vinegar
400g box of durian of your choice
Instructions
Preheat your oven. Line your cupcake pans with cupcake papers.
Sift all dry ingredients directly into the mixing bowl.
Fit the paddle attachment on your mixer.
Add to the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients; the durian extract, vanilla extract and oil on low speed until combined.
With the mixer still on low speed, add eggs one at a time.
Add buttermilk slowly to the mixture, careful not to flood the mixture whilst the mixer is still on low speed.
Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl.
Add vinegar to the batter and mix on medium speed for 10 secs.
Fill cupcake papers 2/3 full and pop them immediately into the oven. Due to the reaction of vinegar and bi carb soda; you need to work quickly, otherwise if you leave the batter out for too long, you’ll get big nasty craters in your cupcakes.
Bake for 20-26 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.
If you manage to get a box of seedless durian, great! If not, remove all the durian flesh from the seeds and lightly mash it with a fork to form a durian paste.
Once the cupcakes have cooled down, use a little knife and carve out a little hole in the middle of the cupcake and fill it with 1-2 tsp of durian.
Buttercream Frosting:
180g butter (room temperature)
6-8 cups icing sugar mixture
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions:
Using a paddle attachment on your mixer, beat butter until white and fluffy.
Sift the icing sugar mixture into another bowl.
Add in 5 cups of the icing sugar into the mixing bowl; mix on low and gradually increase the speed to med-high.
Then, add in the milk and vanilla extract, beat until combined.
Continue to add in the icing sugar until you have reached your desired consistency and sweetness for the buttercream frosting.
Depends how much frosting you like on your cupcakes; I find that this batch of frosting can frost way more than 24 cupcakes so I highly suggest you half the ingredients if you don't want a sugar overload.
Finally, pipe the buttercream frosting onto the cupcakes and top it with more durian!