Happy Halloween everyone!! This recipe isn’t super festive, but the colors are a bit Halloweeny, so that counts, right?
This was my first time experimenting with alcohol and baking, and I really liked the effect! Don’t worry – you’d have to eat about a million of these before you get any sort of a buzz ;) But I love drinking orange juice with amaretto, so I thought it would make a nice flavor for a cake. The orange definitely lightened up the heaviness of the pound cake.
Orange Amaretto Pound Cake Cupcakes
with Chocolate Amaretto Ganache
Makes one dozen.
Ingredients
for the pound cake
2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 C sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
dash salt
1/3 C amaretto
zest of one orange
for the ganache
3/4 C semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 C heavy cream
2 Tbsp amaretto
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour and baking powder. Set aside.
3. In a smaller bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, and salt.
4. Pour wet into dry and combine. Stir in amaretto and orange zest.
5. Fill cupcake tins 3/4 full (these puff up a lot!) and bake 22-25 min.
6. When cupcakes are completely cool, begin ganache by pouring chocolate chips and amaretto into a bowl.
7. Over medium heat, simmer cream. As soon as it reaches a boil, turn off the heat and pour over the chocolate chips. Stir until smooth.
8. Dip the tops of the cupcakes in the ganache. Garnish with orange peel.
They were so pretty when the ganache was fresh and shiny! Not quite as pretty when it dried dull, but they still tasted great. The chocolate works really nicely with the orange and amaretto.