Rebekah's Anise and Orange Liqueur Cakes
Submitted by: Rebekah from Davenport, Iowa
Yield: ~40 cupcakes for me. Your cupcake size will vary; mine were rather small.
Preparation Instructions:
CAKES
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Mix shortening, eggs, sugar, vanilla, anise, liqueur, and milk. Stop mixer, and add flour, baking powder and salt; mix in evenly. Line a cupcake tin with liners. Use a cookie disher to scoop batter into cupcake liners.
Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes.
FROSTING
Mix all ingredients in a bowl until smooth.
Adjust with milk/powdered sugar until it's a nice consistency and flavor. Frosting is optional with these, as they don't exactly need it. If you really like your liqueur, you can throw a bit of that in as well.
More About This Recipe
A few words about several of the ingredients, and substitutions for them. *Whole (or broken) star anise is strong stuff, so don't go overboard with it. If you are using aniseed instead of star anise, you will want to use more than the number I gave for ground star anise. *Orange liqueur is not to be feared; my proportions using this recipe came out fine, although my cupcakes were smaller and therefore had more surface area for the alcohol to dissipate. Orange bitters could be substituted, albeit in much smaller proportions, and it would be much easier to go overboard, so add very carefully. This is a good excuse for tasting your cake batter. *For vanilla, the recipe assumes you're using single strength. I liked the Madagascar vanilla in them, although Tahitian vanilla wouldn't be out of place. It won't matter terribly; use what you have. Unless what you have is vanilla *flavoring.* Stay away from that sludge; go buy something decent, or leave it out.
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