Pineapple Cupcakes

So what did I do with the rest of the pineapple from my smoothie afternoon? Made up a pineapple cupcake recipe of course. Here it is!

Ingredients:

• White Cake mix and everything to make it (mine called for 1 1/4 cup water, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, 3 egg whites)
• about 2 cups diced pineapple
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger (the ginger was a little strong so if you're not in love with ginger you may want to cut this down a little)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 container coconut pecan frosting

** Yup- that is a glass of wine in the back. Not needed for this recipe but definitely needed while baking.



Steps:



1. In a small saucepan combine diced pineapple, ginger, brown sugar and cinnamon
2. Simmer until pineapple is soft, mash chunks a little bit but you still want some chunks of pineapple in there
3. Once pineapple is softened remove from heat and stir in vanilla

 
4. Prepare cake mix and line cupcake pan with paper liners
5. Fill cupcakes just slightly less than you would for normal cupcakes (about 2/3 full? 1/2 full? I usually fill the cupcakes a lot because I like a nice full dome top on my cupcakes) If you don't have one of these scoops you HAVE to get one - it makes scooping the cupcakes so easy and you get nice even cupcakes.

 
6. Next use a spoon or something small to scoop the pineapple filling onto each cupcake. I used a 1/2 tbsp and it worked great.   

 
7.  Swirl the filling into each cupcake with a knife so the filling is evenly mixed throughout the whole cupcake.

 
8. Bake according to back of cake box, mine took about 2 minutes less than what the box said but I used that as a guide. (box said 19-22 minutes, mine took 17 minutes) 
9. Let cool.  

 
10. Once cooled frost with coconut pecan frosting.  

With this recipe I was able to make 18 filled cupcakes and I had enough cake mix left for 3 plain cupcakes. The ginger and cinnamon really add to the flavor of the cupcakes and when you are simmering the filling it smells SOOOO good! When you take them out of the oven make sure to really really let them cool before eating them- the filling is super hot! These were fun to make and would be a good summer cupcake since they have pineapple in them. I'm sure a few different frosting would go well on these. I was thinking of doing a white chocolate ganache but I already had the coconut pecan frosting so I used that. If I did do a white chocolate frosting I think I'd top them with a piece of pineapple. I wouldn't change the cupcakes at all- yum!  

My original plan was to bring these up to the cabin this weekend but its raining today, so I decided to stay home. Guess I'll have to bring them to work instead.

Happy weekend!