Pink Sapphire, Guava Cupcake
Notes
Posh on Pennies: June Cupcake of the Month: Pink Sapphire
This is the recipe that taught me a lot about reducing liquids down to a syrup to use in cakes. A lot of recipes I researched online either just used juice or they used an expensive concentrate of the guava that I couldn't afford. The best way to start looking at what juices available has the lease amount of additives and more juice concentrate and I would just make a syrup out of the store bought juice. The best juice to make a syrup out of is the Mexican brands of guava juice. Other juices just have too much additives and not enough flavor after the juice has been reduced down. If you can find a Mexican brand juice, get it and use it to make the guava syrup for this recipe. I made someone cry when they ate this cupcake because it reminded them of home. Guava cakes are found in Pacific Island cultures. Another tip is to brush the tops of the baked cupcakes with some leftover guava syrup to give it an extra aroma and flavor boost. I tinted the cake batter with a pink gel paste to identify this a pink guava. The juice may be pink but the color of the juice gets baked out, so use gel paste if you want people to "know" it's pink guava :)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Whisk together, then set aside, dry ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Cream together until light and fluffy:
1 ½ cup sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
Then add one at a time to butter-sugar mixture, beating well:
4 eggs
Add:
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Add dry ingredients to butter-egg mixture, alternating with:
1 cup guava nectar syrup*
Mix well after each addition but do not over mix.
Pour batter into 24 muffin cups. Bake for about 20-25 minutes. Let cool. Frost with Guava Buttercream Frosting or Pink Swiss Meringue Buttercream.
*To make guava nectar syrup, I reduced guava nectar juice (Mexican brands are the best and have no added sugar) to about half. Let it cool before using in your batter. I found this was better than using guava juice.