These Mai Tai Cupcakes are an easy and delicious recipe inspired by the cocktail. There's a small amount of rum (not a ton, there are kid-friendly) in the cupcakes which makes them super moist and they're topped with a fresh orange butter cream tat's bursting with flavor and a cherry an a sprig of mint on top, just like the drink!
½cupof buttermilkif you don't have this on hand, you can make it by whisking a little lemon juice into regular milk
1tsp.of vanilla extract
1tsp.of orange extract
2large eggs
1 ½cupsof sugar
Muffin cups
For the frosting:
2sticks of buttersoftened
6cupsof confectioner's sugar
⅔cupof fresh squeezed orange juicebasically the juice of one orange
1tsp.of vanilla or almond extract
1tsp.of orange extract
The zest of one orange
Instructions
For the cupcakes:
Heat the oven to 350 degrees and place cupcake liners into a muffin pan.
Sift together the cake flour, baking soda and salt into a large mixing bowl.
Add the oil, rum, buttermilk, vanilla orange extract and beat until smooth.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until thick and foamy. Gradually add the sugar until well blended. Fold this thoroughly into the batter.
Fill the muffin cups ¾ of the way up.
Bake between 15-20 minutes (mine were perfect right around 17 minutes but this will vary based on your oven).
For the frosting:
Beat all ingredients until well combined.
Pipe generously onto your cupcakes.
Enjoy!
Notes
This is not a rum-soak dessert like a rum cake would be. There is a small enough amount of rum that it cooks off as it bakes and is not boozy.
If you are dead set on not cooking with rum you can substitute an additional ½ cup of buttermilk. It will change the flavor a bit but will still taste good.