Over the holidays we had the opportunity to try 6 different organic flavor concentrates made by Nature’s Flavors: Vanilla, Pumpkin Spice, Cranberry, Gingerbread, Peppermint, and Eggnog. These are organic and all natural ingredients used primarily to recreate or amplify flavors in baking, ice cream, an
d/or coffee drinks.
Nature’s Flavors has 335 different organic flavor concentrates to choose from, as well as flavor powders and powdered and liquid all natural food colorings. Their flavor concentrates make it so easy to make the holidays taste special, naturally. How simple and delicious would it be to add liquid peppermint flavor to hot chocolate, a coffee drink, or even cheesecake? You could make your home baked goods say “Happy Holidays!” by adding eggnog or pumpkin flavor to whipped cream, coffee cake, or even pancake batter!
I’ve been using the Vanilla in all my baked goods for the past few months, and featured it especially when my daughter and I made and decorated Coconut Oil Sugar Cookies. I added the Pumpkin Spice to a pie, but that wasn’t really it’s best use. I’d recommend it as an addition to your favorite Pumpkin Scone recipe, and/or it would be great to experiment with making your own Pumpkin Spice coffee drinks at home. Even just adding a teaspoon of concentrate to a plain cookie or cake recipe would be such a simple way to make it festive. I haven’t gotten a chance yet to try the Cranberry flavor extract – but I’ve been thinking it would be the ideal way to amp up the flavor in something like a Cranberry Sweet Potato Quick Bread.
In December I made many attempts at Gingerbread Scones. I’m still looking for the “perfect” recipe – but a dash of Gingerbread Flavor Concentrate really helped enunciate that flavor in the recipes I tried. Eggnog Scones have also been popular around here this holiday season – and the Eggnog Flavor Concentrate was just the thing to drive that home. My recipe is very similar to this Cream Scone recipe, but I use eggnog in place of the cream and top with cinnamon sugar (YUM!!).
When my daughter smelled the Peppermint Flavor Concentrate she was smitten. Candy Canes are one of her favorite things and a rare treat for her each December. She smelled it and said – We should make a peppermint cake. Well, who can argue with that? Since peppermint + chocolate is one of my favorite December combinations I made sure that a chocolate peppermint ganache was part of the plan, and then we decided on cupcakes because…CUPCAKES!
So, for your holiday
baking pleasure, here’s our recipe for Peppermint Cupcakes with Chocolate Peppermint Ganache featuring Nature’s Flavors Organic Peppermint Concentrate.
Ingredients
- For the Peppermint Cupcakes:
- 2 cups Flour
- 1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1/3 cup Butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1/4 cup Sour Cream
- 2/3 cup Milk
- 1 Tablespoon Peppermint Flavor
- For the Chocolate Peppermint Ganache:
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips
- 1 tsp - 1 Tbls milk
- 2-3 drops peppermint flavor concentrate
- crushed candycanes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Whisk to combine your dry ingredients in one small bowl (flour, baking powder, and salt).
- Measure the milk into a cup and add the peppermint flavor.
- In a mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light. Add the egg, and sour cream.
- With the mixer on low, alternately add the dry flour and wet milk to the bowl of butter et al.
- Once combined, pour the batter into buttered or sprayed muffin tins - DO NOT OVERFILL! These rise quite a bit.
- Bake 13-15 minutes.
- Cool and let rest in pan for 5-10 minutes before turning out onto a rack to finish cooling.
- Once the cupcakes are cool, microwave the chocolate chips in a bowl for 10 second intervals, stirring between each. You are looking for the chocolate chips to melt together, but not be overcooked. Stir gently and be patient - the heat in the bowl and the other melted chips will encourage them all to melt.
- Add a splash of milk and a few drops of peppermint flavor and stir some more. The addition of cold milk may make your chocolate seize. It's OK! Stir it gently, again coaxing the heat from the bowl back into the chocolate. If that doesn't work, give it another few seconds in the microwave and stir it gently back to glossy.
- You can try dipping the cupcakes top-first into the ganache or use a spoon to spread some on each one. Top with crushed candy canes (this can be accomplished via food processor or good old aggression - you pick! A rolling pin will do the job, but may be overkill. A 1 cup dry measuring cup did the trick pretty well and makes it a lot easier for small helpers to assist).
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