Vegan Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes with (non-Vegan) Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

I looooove mexican chocolate flavored things. Maybe I just like cinnamon.....and that cayenne kick at the end mmm, so when I found a vegan mexican chocolate cupcake recipe I jumped all over it. I'm not vegan meself if you couldn't tell, but I love being able to feed stuff to my buddies. I just ate one and yuuuum. The great thing about this recipe is how easy it is. Dry ingredients in one bowl, add all the wets and mix lightly then bake. There are going to be more of these in my future. The cupcake recipe is from Strawberry Pepper a vegan blog. The only adjustment I made to it was halving the recipe because I only own 1 muffin tin.

The frosting recipe came from Myrecipes and I also halved this recipe. It's not in the title but this is actually a browned butter cream cheese frosting and after using browned butter in the Mille crepe I thought it would taste really good and it does. As per usual, pulled the recipes from elsewhere and my notes will be in bold.

Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes
24 cupcakes

3 cups all-purpose white flour (or 1/2 whole wheat pastry, 1/2 white)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cayenne pepper (or less if you’re very sensitive to spice)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups water
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp apple cider or white vinegar

Directions:
preheat oven to 350 ºF and place liners into a muffin pan
1. In a large bowl mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, cinnamon and cayenne pepper together. I added a little bit less than the recommended cayenne and I think that's a good amount for me personally. Instead of 1 tsp it was more like 3/4 tsp, again halved recipe.
2. Add the vegetable oil, water, vanilla, and vinegar to the dry ingredients and stir. Do not over mix; a few clumps are okay. I happened to use apple cider vinegar.
3. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 of the way, bake for 15-20 minutes or until a knife pulls out clean. Seriously, was that not easy or what?

Browned Butter-Cinnamon-Cream Cheese Frosting 

Southern Living DECEMBER 2011

• Yield: Makes 5 cups
• Hands-on:15 Minutes
• Total:1 Hour, 15 Minutes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 (8-oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
• 2 (16-oz.) packages powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preparation

1. Cook butter in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, 6 to 8 minutes or until butter begins to turn golden brown. Immediately remove from heat. Pour butter into a bowl. Cover and chill 1 hour or until butter is cool and begins to solidify. Be careful because as it browns the butter starts foaming up so it becomes difficult to see the liquid portion of the butter for color. I had left the butter overnight so when I took it out today it was too hard for my mixer to process. Try doing the hour thing or take the butter out ahead of time to give it time to soften a little.

2. Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add powdered sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Stir in cinnamon and vanilla. I only used about 9.5 oz powdered sugar by weight because I had 2 packages that were open and that's what they added up to. Upon tasting I thought that it was a good sweetness so I didn't open another package. 

Mille Crepe

A dessert with the name one thousand crepes? How does that not sound delicious? And so I began my search on the internet for a good recipe and all over the place many signs pointed to the recipe in the 5.15.05 New York Times, adapted from "The Joy of Baking". I did opt to use both their crepe and creme patissiere recipes even though I have my mom's creme recipe that I usually use. I did omit the later additions of whipped cream and kirsch etc. that were part of the creme patissiere because I was quite tired by the end of everything. Be forewarned: components are supposed to be mixed ahead of time because they are supposed to be chilled.

Sorry it's kinda dark, my kitchen lighting is poor and I hate flash. This one is a bit small, one of my first few. Add a little more batter than this and move it all around the pan till it stops flowing.

Isn't it pretty after the flip? 

Layer and spread.

 The end!

Layer shot. Mine was 20 crepes tall

copy/pasted from the article with my notes in bold:

Gâteau de Crêpes
For the crepe batter:
6 tablespoons butter
3 cups milk
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
7 tablespoons sugar
Pinch salt

For the vanilla pastry cream:
2 cups milk
1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons butter

For the assembly:
Corn oil
2 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar or more
3 tablespoons Kirsch
Confectioners' sugar.
1. The day before, make the crepe batter and the pastry cream. Batter: In a small pan, cook the butter until brown like hazelnuts. This makes it taste really really good. It's hard to see the color of the butter underneath the foamy bubbles that appear so be careful. Set aside. In another small pan, heat the milk until steaming; allow to cool for 10 minutes. I have no idea what this step is for but I did it. In a mixer on medium-low speed, beat together the eggs, flour, sugar and salt. Slowly add the hot milk and browned butter. Pour into a container with a spout, cover and refrigerate overnight. Or in my case chill for like an hour and a half while you eat dinner and read emails.

2. Pastry cream: Bring the milk with the vanilla bean (and scrapings) to a boil, then set aside for 10 minutes; remove bean. I used an older vanilla been that I had been using in making vanilla sugar. Fill a large bowl with ice and set aside a small bowl that can hold the finished pastry cream and be placed in this ice bath. Skipped this step.
3. In a medium heavy-bottomed pan, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch. Gradually whisk in the hot milk, then place pan over high heat and bring to a boil, whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Press the pastry cream through a fine-meshed sieve into the small bowl. Set the bowl in the ice bath and stir until the temperature reaches 140 degrees on an instant-read thermometer. Stir in the butter. When completely cool, cover and refrigerate. This is where things got weird. One minute I'm stirring soup, the next there are solids EVERYWHERE. I can't tell if I heated it too much or this was normal or what. I thought I had made it into scrambled eggs but I whisked it really hard and it was actually smooth if very thick. Since it looked ok I didn't bother with temperature and added the butter in after a good whisking. The seiving didn't work because it was so thick so I skipped that. Since the butter was already in I skipped the icing, left it on the counter to cool and then put it in the fridge.
4. Assemble the cake the next day: Bring the batter to room temperature. Place a nonstick or seasoned 9-inch crepe pan over medium heat. Swab the surface with the oil, then add about 3 tablespoons batter and swirl to cover the surface. Cook until the bottom just begins to brown, about 1 minute, then carefully lift an edge and flip the crepe with your fingers. Cook on the other side for no longer than 5 seconds. Flip the crepe onto a baking sheet lined with parchment. Repeat until you have 20 perfect crepes. Hints for the crepe making are nonstick pan, high heat. I shoved a spatula underneath and pushed because it was too hot for my fingers ;_; . It would sort of rumple on itself like a rug, and then I would flip it and shake the pan to smooth it back out. I left it on the second side for more than 5 seconds because I liked the browning I got out of it. I didn't time the crepes so much as look at them. The edges would get pretty brown and then I'd check the bottom.
5. Pass the pastry cream through a sieve once more. Whip the heavy cream with the tablespoon sugar and the Kirsch. It won't hold peaks. Fold it into the pastry cream.
6. Lay 1 crepe on a cake plate. Using an icing spatula, completely cover with a thin layer of pastry cream (about 1/4 cup). Cover with a crepe and repeat to make a stack of 20, with the best-looking crepe on top. Chill for at least 2 hours. Set out for 30 minutes before serving. If you have a blowtorch for creme brulee, sprinkle the top crepe with 2 tablespoons sugar and caramelize with the torch; otherwise, dust with confectioners' sugar. Slice like a cake. Batter adapted from ''Joy of Cooking.'' Pastry cream adapted from ''Desserts,'' by Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan. Serves 10.Ok I skipped this addition also because I was so tired but I bet it would have made the pastry cream pretty nice. Out of the fridge it was quite thick, consistency btwn jello and pudding, it held it's own shape but was spreadable....weird. I wish I had a torch.

Next time I might add some extra flavor layers like a nutella layer here and there or maybe fruit or...coffee...maccha.. the possibilities are endless. I could also maybe have added an alcohol like frangelico to the pastry cream. Or maybe pour a crepe suzette style sauce over the top? Still, yum.