Inspiring Breakfast

One morning last week, I got up at 7 am, like I usually do every day, got ready for work and had some time to spare. I figured with this extra time, I would do something nice and make my boyfriend some french toast for breakfast instead of sending him out the door with the usual Mountain Dew and cold slice of pizza. While whisking my eggs and milk together I had and idea pop into my head about incorporating my french toast recipe into cupcake form and adding some dried figs recently purchased at an Organic food co-op that I love to visit in Grass Valley. Of course it would have been ideal to use fresh juicy figs in this cupcake creation, however, it just isn't the season for figs and finding them fresh has become quite the task.

After work that day I practically ran through the door, situating myself right in front of some mixing bowls. Because I have never seen a recipe for french toast cupcakes, I was baking completely from scratch on this one, adding more flour when I thought needed, or an extra splash of milk if the flour made the batter too thick :) It is for this reason that I am afraid I can not share a totally accurate recipe for this cupcake, but I will try and get as close to the original as possible.

All in all, this has potential to be a really great cupcake recipe. I topped these treats with a homemade maple, cream cheese frosting and turbinado sugar sprinkles for sparkle. I also added chopped chocolate pieces which I would suggest leaving out of the recipe in the future. Another lesson I learned while baking these cupcakes was to always write the date of when you buy your baking sodas and powders onto the box the day you buy them. What most people don't realize is how quickly these two things go bad and ultimately become useless to your baked goods. Unfortunately, the baking soda I had used in these cupcakes was dead and left my Figgy French Toast creations pretty dense. Better luck next time I suppose!

For the Cakes:

Preheat oven to 375 F

~ 2 Cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

~ 1 1/2 Cups sugar

2 eggs

~ 3/4 Cup milk

~ 1 stick of unsalted butter, melted

Bar of Hershey Baking Chocolate

~ Cup of chopped figs

~ 2 tsp cinnamon

~ a drizzle of clover honey

pinch of salt

First, I melt the butter in the microwave and then slowly added half of the Hershey bar in the hot butter to make a buttery chocolate mixture. Next, I combine all of the dry ingredients into one bowl and set aside. I then combine the wet ingredients into another bowl, slowlyyyy adding the butter mixture to the eggs, whisking quickly while doing so in order to keep the eggs from scrambling. Right before combining the wet and the dry, I chopped up the figs and the other half of the chocolate bar, incorporating them into the dry mixture.

Next, I combine the wet and the dry to create a cohesive batter and filled prepared cupcake tins 3/4s of the way full. I let them bake for about 25 minutes before pulling them out and letting cool on the counter.

For the icing, I mixed together 1 brick of soft cream cheese with approx 1/2 cup of real maple syrup and 3/4 cup powder sugar. You may just have to add and subtract where you feel it is necessary, like I said before, there was not much measuring being done here. When the icing was mixed smooth, I placed it in a makeshift icing bag (zip lock with the corner cut out), and make a pretty swirl design on top of the cakes. Finishing the cupcakes with a sprinkle of turbinado sugar.

I had to place my cupcakes in the fridge to keep the icing from melting, but heating them in the morning for breakfast was a real success!