Earl Grey anyone?

Today I tried my hand at Earl Grey cupcakes with honey buttercream frosting.

 

I got both recipes form other bloggers. The cupcakes are from Desert Candy and the frosting from Romancing the Bee. The Earl Grey cupcakes were listed with a lemon buttercream that I switched out for the honey frosting recipe. The honey frosting was listed with a honey cake that I'd like to try soon.

The cupcakes baked up perfectly.

I have been trying to perfect my cupcake baking technique as I was consistently getting cupcakes that would fall after I took them out of the oven. Here are the tips that I followed, having gathered them from various sources online and off, that helped me out:

1. Make sure that all ingredients are at room temperature. I left my butter, eggs and milk out on the counter for at least 30 minutes (by the time I got to baking it was actually 45 minutes).

2. Beat butter first - about 30 seconds. Then beat butter and sugar until creamy - about 2 minutes.

3. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.

4. Once you add the dry ingredients barely beat until combined. The recipe I was working with suggested I beat in half of the flour until just combined and then stir in the milk and the rest of the flour until just combined. This tip worked out great and helped me to not over-beat (my biggest tendency - especially since my hand mixer only works at high speed as I let my toddler play with it for a few months).

The cupcakes turned out wonderful. The cakes were fluffy and not too sweet. I did find myself wishing I could taste more of the tea. The Earl Grey flavor was very subtle. Next time I'll replace the milk with strongly brewed Earl Grey tea mixed with half and half. I'll also try the lemon buttercream. Maybe the citrus in the frosting will bring out more of the citrus notes in the tea.

The frosting is definitely a keeper, worked well with this cake, and will work well with all kinds of cupcakes. Can you tell by my picture that I love frosting? I generally over-frost my cupcakes. This recipe is a very rich and very sweet one. If you aren't into frosting you might want to spread it instead of pipe it.