Page 60 Brown Sugar Pound Cakes

"Pound Cake batters bake into especially rich and dense cupcakes, and the traditional recipe can be adapted in so many ways to vary the flavor and texture. In this version, brown sugar replaces granulated for a hint of caramel flavor, while buttermilk makes for a more tender crumb than when made with regular milk. Nutty brown-butter icing pairs especially well with these cupcakes, but many other topping would also work, including brown-sugar cream cheese frosting or whipped cream." - Martha

Wow! These were so simple to make and so rich and delicious. I don't know how accurate Martha's comment of using buttermilk would make the more tender crumb is because I used regular milk (1%) and these pound cakes turned out so rich and tasty I can't imagine a more tender crumb. But, I'll have to take her word for it; what that means is, no matter how delicious and wonderful I think mine turned out, they would be that much better had I used buttermilk! Wow!

This recipe made 28 cupcakes...exactly 28! I mean really, there was barely a fingertip-full by the time I filled all of the cups. Now, I found this unusual because I normally have enough batter leftover to eat at least one cupcake worth of batter and there was only a scraping of it left in the bowl. Bummer! But what I got I knew would have good results in the baking of it.

Martha suggests using the brown-butter icing but since I had already chosen to use that frosting on a previous cupcake, I chose to highlight these cupcakes with strawberries and ice cream. I grew up having strawberry shortcakes with pound cake as the main ingredient so why not these? Oh, and man oh man! They are so good that way! Imagine pound cake, fresh strawberries, Bluebell vanilla bean and then that extra special flavor of the brown sugar bringing that caramel hint to the mix! Scrumptious!