Everything's Just Peachy...If You've Got Peach Cupcakes with Martha Stewart's Mascarpone Frosting

Ever eat peaches and cream in a bowl with a spoon? That's what these cupcakes taste like...Delish! It's a moist cupcake because of the peach juice and even better eating after a day goes by.

The recipe is from Julie Hasson's 125 Cupcakes book, but I substituted the nectarines she calls for because I couldn't find any really ripe ones. But, the peaches I found at Whole Foods were ripe and sweet, so I came home very happy to begin baking my cupcakes. Her recipe calls for lemon zest, but I used orange zest instead.

But first I must digress to tell you about the place where I bought the mascarpone that I used to make the frosting. It's smply the coolest new business in Washington,D.C...it's called Cowgirl Creamery, which I read about in the Washington Post, and we went to vist. We had the best time there and stayed for quite a while testing out many different types of cheese. They have the cutest aprons. We tried to buy one, but they aren't for sale. We met the nicest people including Erica, shown in this photo on the right! Pop in sometime and tell Erica hi! Here's the address: 919 F St. NW, Washington, DC...it's right near the Spy Museum.


Just before our cheese vist, we hit U Street in search of Cakelove...well, really we were looking for Warren Brown, but we didn't find him, although we heard he had a great party the night before! We were able to find and wrap our lips around these cupcakes: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and german chocolate. By far the best was the german chocolate. Suprisingly, the cupcakes themselves weren't that great, but the frostings were all awesome!


Here's the recipe for the cupcakes...Layla especially lked the mascarpone (Martha Stewart's recipe below).

Peach Cupcakes with Martha Stewart's Mascarpone Frosting

Makes 12 cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C)

1-1/2 cups (375 mL) all purpose flour
1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder
1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
1-1/4 cups (300 mL) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (125 mL) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 eggs
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
2 tsp (10 mL) grated orange zest
3/4 cup (175 mL) milk
2 peaches or nectarines, pitted and thinly sliced and cut into thirds

1. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.

2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition until light and fluffly. Add vanilla and orange zest, beating well. Alternately beat in flour mixture and milk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of milk, beating until smooth. Fold in peaches or nectarines.

3. Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated over for 23-28 minutes or until golden brown and tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched.

Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack.

Martha Stewart's Mascarpone Frosting

1 pound mascarpone cheese (always buy from Cowgirl Creamery)
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1-1/4 cups heavy cream

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (I didn't have this and just used the regular beaters), beat themascarpone, cream and confectioners' sugar until medium-soft peaks form, 1 to 2 minutes. Be careful no to overbeat. Use immediately.

My note: I started out beating at medium speed...bad news...then I poured on the speed to almost the highest my mixer would go. Success! It has to be beaten high speed to get thicker. I also think it was the awesome mascarpone I bought from Cowgirl Creamery!

Rock On!