The cake part reminds me of a hummingbird cake. The subtle flavor of the pineapple jam goes well with the cinnamon and ginger spices. The icing on top tastes much like a praline, especially since the edges are rolled in ground pecans.
I am now thinking of all the other jams that could be used to flavor a cake or cupcakes and the different icing combinations you can come up with. The only concern on a variation is the type of jam. It would need to be seedless, so you may have to do some straining. This recipe makes 3 dz cupcakes.
Jazzy Jam Cupcakes
by flourtrader
Ingredients/cupcakes
1 cup chopped toasted pecans
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup of pineapple jam
6 eggs
2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup or 2 sticks of butter (room temp)
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
Ingredients/Frosting
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp rum
1/2 cup ground pecans
To make your cupcakes, preheat the oven to 325 degrees and grease the top edge of the cavities of a muffin tin. Line the cavities with paper liners. Set aside.
With an electric mixer, beat butter until it reaches a creamy consistency. Slowly add the light brown sugar and beat for an additional 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time for about 30 seconds each.
Fold the jam in the batter with a wooden spoon until evenly dispersed, then beat for 1 minute. Set aside.
In a medium size bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and ginger together. Fold in 1/4 of the dry mixture to the wet batter, then add 1/4 cup of buttermilk. Continue with this process of adding and mixing in the dry mixture and buttermilk-ending with the addition of the last bit of flour.
Then stir in the pecan pieces.
Fill each cavity of the pan with the batter. Batter should be nearly to the top edge of each cavity. Place pan in oven and bake until done, or when tester comes out clean. Mine took about 20-25 minutes.
Remove pan and let cupcakes cool for about 3 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.
To make the frosting, place first three ingredients into a saucepan over medium high heat. Stir the mixture until the butter is melted. As you stir, let the mixture come to a boil and then
boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in rum. Let cool for 20 minutes.
Then add wet frosting mixture to powdered sugar, stirring to blend. Place a sieve over a large bowl and strain frosting mixture into bowl, using a spatula to stir out any lumps from the powdered sugar.
Using a spoon, smooth the frosting over the top of the first cupcake, making sure that the edges are covered. You should let excess frosting drip down into a bowl. Place the cupcakes on a cooling rack for about 3 minutes for the icing to start to set up. After about 3 minutes, roll iced cupcake edges into the bowl of ground nuts, pressing lightly. If icing still drips off into pecan crumbs, stop and wait another 3 minutes and resume rolling in the crumbs. I was able to frost about 6 cupcakes at each interval before rolling in nuts. After all the cupcakes are frosted and decorated with nuts, allow the frosting to set up. This should take about an hour.
Then you are ready to serve.