Mai Tai Cupcakes

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!

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine BBQ, cook out, cupcake, party, Summer

Diet Low Salt

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 20

Total Time 40

Servings cupcakes

Calories 277kcal

Author Jessy Freimann

Equipment

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

2 cups cake flour
1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
⅔ cup vegetable oil
½ cup spiced rum like Captain Morgan
½ cup buttermilk if you don't have this on hand, you can make it by whisking a little lemon juice into regular milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon orange extract
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups granulated sugar

For the frosting:

1 cup salted butter softened (2 sticks)
6 cups confectioner's sugar
1 large orange zest and juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla or almond extract
1 teaspoon orange extract

Instructions

For the cupcakes:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F 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 uncovered between 15-20 minutes (mine were perfect right around 17 minutes but this will vary based on your oven). Cool completely.

For the frosting:

Beat all ingredients until well combined.
Pipe generously onto your cupcakes.
Refrigerate until serving.

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.

Nutrition