Caribbean Sunshine Cupcakes
April 10, 2009
On a cruise a couple years ago, my parents took a liking to this passionfruit liqueur called Passoa. And then we brought it back here, and nobody drank any of it.
Around Christmas I decided to try it and I liked it. It’s like Hpnotiq but not as awesome, still nice and sugary and tasting of some fruit you can’t quite pinpoint. I had also come across this recipe, so I tried them out but the flavor reminded me more of a muffin, probably because of the cranberries and orange.
I bought a bottle of 7-Up to try to come up with another soda cupcake, but I couldn’t think of any drink involving a lemon-lime soda other than like just to fill the glass, so I decided to experiment.
And I have created Caribbean Sunshine.
1. If you’d like for the cherries on top to be nice and spiked, throw them in a container half rum (I used a dark rum, as the only white rum in this house is apparently raspberry) and half Passoa, so it just covers the cherries. Place the container in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours if you do use rum, otherwise the cherries may become bitter and a little too potent.
For the cake: (I got 12 cupcakes)
1 1/4 stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
2 oz milk
6 oz 7-Up or other lemon lime soda
2 oz passoa
1 tbsp grenadine
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pan or grease cups.
In bowl, beat together butter and sugar until creamed. Add in flour and baking powder, mix until combined. Add egg and milk, mix until combined. Add the other 3 liquid ingredients and mix until smooth. Pour into cupcake pan and bake for 15-17 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Brush the top of each with a mixture of half Passoa, half lemon lime soda.
Sunshine Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp powdered sugar
10 maraschino cherries, cut into pieces + 2 tsp of juice from jar
1 tbsp lemon lime soda
1 tbsp Passoa
Begin whipping cream and sugar, add cherries and liquid until stiff peaks form. Add more liquid as needed for flavoring. Top cupcakes with whipped cream followed by a cherry.
I will warn you that if you’re gonna try to get the whipped cream through a decorating tip to make sure they’re small…I’m not really happy with how these turned out on top because not only did I not realize this, but also the sky turned green. So, first it’s flurries and then it’s nearby tornadoes. Maybe I should stop making cupcakes.
