A mojito is a sweet and refreshing cocktail that is made with limes, mint leaves, sugar, white rum, and seltzer water. This recipe takes all of the flavors of a mojito and puts into into cupcake form. If you don’t like mojitos, you may not like these cupcakes. If you have never had a mojito, the flavor of these cupcakes is similar to the bright flavor of a lemon cake or key lime pie. To clean the limes, pour some vinegar in a bowl and roll the limes in it. Then wash the limes off under the sink faucet.
Prep time: 30 mins. - 1 hr.
Cook time: 30 mins.
Serves to: 12 persons
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 cup mint leaves
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter - at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 limes
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons rum - Use white rum if you have it.
- 8 ounces of cream cheese
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- green food coloring - optional
Place 1/2 cup of mint leaves into a glass cup. Using the back of a large wooden spoon, press down firmly on the leaves repeatedly to bruise them. This is called muddling and it releases the essential oils and flavor of the mint.
Place the buttermilk and bruised mint leaves into a small saucepan over medium heat.
Once a little bit of steam starts coming out of the pan, take the pan off the heat and cover the pot with a lid. Allow the mint to steep in the buttermilk for 30 minutes. This will help infuse the mint flavor into the buttermilk. As you can see, the buttermilk has curdled. This is normal.
After the mint is done steeping, stir the mint and buttermilk well. Place a fine mesh strainer over a bowl. Pour the buttermilk and mint leaves into the strainer. Using a spoon, press the curdled buttermilk over the strainer until the curdled bits are pretty much gone and only the mint leaves remain.
Here is our mint flavored buttermilk.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set this bowl aside.
Pre-heat your oven to 325º Fahrenheit.
Using an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. This should take about 5 minutes.
Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each addition. Use a slower mixing speed when doing this.
Grate the zest of one lime into the bowl. Roll the lime on a clean counter while gently pushing down on the lime. This will help the lime to release more of its juice when squeezed. Cut the lime in half and squeeze out all of the juice of 1/2 of the lime into the bowl. Squeeze just a bit more juice out of the second lime into the bowl. Don't squeeze out all of it though.
Add the vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of rum into the bowl. We will use the rest of the rum later. Mix well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed.
Add 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix on low until incorporated. Add 1/2 of the mint flavored buttermilk and another 1/3 of the flour mixture. Mix until incorporated.
Add the remaining buttermilk mixture and flour and mix until just incorporated. You don't want to over-mix.
One thing I would suggest trying, is to place half of the batter into a separate bowl and to that bowl and some finely chopped mint leaves. This way you can bake about 6 mojito cupcakes with extra mint to compare with the ones without the mint to see which version you like better.
Line a muffin tin with liners and spoon the mojito batter evenly into each of the 12 cupcake cups.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. To ensure that the cupcakes bake evenly, rotate the pan in the oven after about 13 minutes. Once the cupcakes are done, remove the pan from the oven and place it on your stove or a wire rack to cool.
Muddle / bruise a few more mint leaves in the remaining 2 tablespoons of rum.
Pour the mint and rum into a small saucepan and heat the rum up until you start to see a bit of steam coming out. Remove the pan from the heat and cover for 15-30 minutes to allow the mint flavor to infuse with the rum.
Evenly pour or spoon the mint flavored rum onto each of the cupcakes.
How to Make the Mojito Cupcake Topping:
Mix the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and the zest and juice of 1/2 of a lime.
If you would like the mojito cupcake frosting to be green, you can mix in a couple drops of green food coloring.
Top the cupcakes with the lime flavored cream cheese frosting.
For a nice presentation, fit a star tip to a pipping bag and fill the bag with the cream cheese frosting. Gently push down on the cupcake with the tip of the pipping bag while squeezing the bag. As the cream cheese frosting comes out of the bag, lift the bag vertically. Repeat until the entire top cupcake is covered in frosting.
Grate any remaning lemon zest over the top of the cupcakes and top with mint leaf.
