Mojito Cupcakes

There are few drinks that say "summer" more clearly to me than a mojito.  I'm not talking about the premade, bottled mojitos that are mass-produced now.  A real mojito, that hits the sides of your tongue with lime and white rum while at the same time making your mouth tingle with fresh mint and soothing with sweet, is a delicate balance in a glass.  This cupcake has the same balance, but in a different form.

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Cake:
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup mint leaves, torn
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tablespoons white rum
Zest and juice of 2 limes
1/4 teaspoon mint extract
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Prepare 24 cupcake pans with paper liner or by greasing.  Set aside.
2. Combine buttermilk, white sugar, and mint leaves in small saucepan.  Over medium heat, stirring constantly, cook mixture until just simmering.  Remove from heat and set aside.
3.  Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl.  Whisk well.  Set aside.
4. Beat butter and brown sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until blended.  Add rum, lime juice and zest, and mint extract.  Beat well.  Mixture will appear curdled.
5. Strain buttermilk mixture, now cooled, into a bowl with a strainer.  A spatula may be needed to force mixture through strainer, but at the end cooked mint leaves should remain in strainer while buttermilk strains into bowl.  Discard mint.
6. Add one-third of the flour mixture to the butter batter.  Beat well.  Pour in half of the buttermilk and mix.  Scrap bowl.  Add another third of the flour mixture and beat until smooth.  Add remaining buttermilk, mix, and then remaining flour mixture.  Beat just until combined.
7. Divide batter evenly between cupcake liners.  Bake in 325 degree oven for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool completely.

Frosting:
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon white rum
Enough milk to thin

1. With spatula, mix frosting ingredients until desired consistency. 
2. Using a knife, spread frosting evenly over cupcakes.

Cupcakes can be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to three days.

Introduction to CSA 2010

I am a bit late posting on Week 1, but I will attempt to catch you up.  First, a note about the structure here.

Since I receive one CSA box a week (for the record, on Fridays), I plan to update on Fridays with what the box contains.  As I make meals out of the produce I receive, then,  I will post pictures and recipes.  The posts with meal pictures and recipes will be labeled with whatever I used from the CSA box.  The idea is that if you have a bunch of, say, tatsoi but have no idea what to do with it, you can find it in the labels and bring up the meal I made with tatsoi.

For the record, my mom also keeps an organic garden which she overplanted this year, so her stuff might appear on here as well.  My parents live on land that has wild black raspberries and gooseberries, as well as cultivated blueberries, so a lot of pictures and recipes for these objects might appear on here as well.  Consider yourself warned, the black raspberry images might be overwhelming; last year we picked 14 gallons of the little buggers.

I also love love love baking and making up baking recipes, so those might be thrown in.  Those will be labeled with something like baking: cookies and also be searchable.  I sometimes like to make cupcakes based on cocktails as well, which will be labeled with the term Drunken Cupcakes.

Questions?  Comments?  Concerns?  OK, here we go.