Brown Butter Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

The title is a mouthful and a bit misleading because while my intention was to make dark chocolate swiss meringue, it turned into more of a dark chocolate-kissed swiss meringue buttercream drizzled with dark chocolate. In any case, these are my favourite whiteish cupcakes topped with a fluffy cloud of buttercream. Neither the cake nor the buttercream are super sweet so this makes for a fantastic bite.

Brown Butter Cupcakes

Recipe from here.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 4 eggs, room temp
  • 1 cup room-temperature milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions

  1. Use the cup of butter to make brown butter as per this post. Allow your browned butter to cool while you start the rest.
  2. Preheat oven to 325°F and prepare your cupcake tins with liners. (if using full-sized cupcake tins, preheat to 350°F)
  3. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
  4. In a large bowl, beat sugar and eggs until fluffy and pale, about a minute. Add milk, browned butter, and vanilla, mixing until just combined.
  5. Add half of the dry mixture and beat, again, until just combined. Repeat with the second half. Don’t overmix, this is the key.
  6. Divide batter amongst liners and bake for 15-20 minutes (18-22 mins, if making full-sized cupcakes), until tops are springy to the touch or a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean. Start checking at 10 minutes as mini-cupcakes bake quickly.
  7. Cool tins on a rack for 2 minutes before carefully removing the cakes. Allow to cool completely before frosting (this will be 5 minutes if you made mini cupcakes, they take no time at all to cool).

Ready for the oven.

Fresh out of the oven!

Topped with my first attempt at Swiss Meringue Buttercream and drizzled with dark chocolate!