Chicken and Waffles Cupcakes

This weekend is the 46th NFL Superbowl featuring New York Giant and New England Patriots.

There you go that is my entire knowledge of the Superbowl in one sentence - mainly gleaned from Google.

The Giants appearance gave me the perfect excuse to make some cupcakes I've been planning to make for just over a year, when I first read about them on Blondie and Brownie's blog - my own version of New York bakers Robicelli's Chicken and Waffles cupcakes. Also any excuse to take pics of my gorgeous Statue of Liberty Hello Kitty.

Robicelli's cupcake is a waffle flavoured cupcake covered in vanilla buttercream topped with a pie of maple glazed fried chicken - mine is slightly different.

I went with a buttermilk cupcake - adapted slightly from a recipe in Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess. I added quite a lot of vanilla to this and omitted the lemon. This cake is perfect to make cupcakes, giant cakes, bundts etc as it's quite sturdy.

It's topped with some absolutely delicious maple syrup frosting. I was lucky enough to get some 100% pure maple syrup from my friend Dennis in Ann Arbor - how cute is this. And it tastes amazing.

The recipe is from Lola's - honestly you won't regret making it - but maybe make double, this doesn't make much.

65g unsalted butter softened
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
65g light muscovado sugar
150g cream cheese at room temp

Mix the butter, syrup and sugar until light and creamy. Add the cream cheese and mix until just smooth. I can not explain how great this frosting tastes - honestly make it and see!

The fried chicken I made myself - just like regular fried chicken. You need buttermilk, plain flour and some paprika. Dunk the chicken in the flour, then the buttermilk, then the flour/spice mix and fry.

The waffles I'm afraid I bought in a fancy coffee shop as I don't have a waffle maker and thought buying one just to make some cupcakes a little extravagant.

Once the cupcakes were assembled we drizzled over some more of the amazing maple syrup and then tucked in. At first I wasn't sure but then I took a bit of everything at once and it worked. Honestly. The chicken got a lovely sweet taste from the maple, and the frosting brought everything together. Manny loved them and ate two (I only made 5) in one sitting!

I saw today that Robicelli's are doing a variation for the Superbowl - the original Buffalo Chicken cupcake, a carrot and celery root cake, Point Reyes blue cheese buttercream, citrus tinged Buffalo fried chicken. Not sure about the blue cheese frosting but I do love the sound of the Buffalo chicken on top - maybe next time!

Finally for those of you who can't stomach the thought of chicken on your cupcakes, the leftover mix was made into cute little bundt cakes which I filled with the leftover frosting!