I found these cupcakes on a wonderful blog called Amybites (go and visit—- her recipes are awesome and I envy her photography skills!) –and I just HAD to make them.
For those of you who aren’t Harry Potter fans, butter beer is a much-loved beverage in the world of Hogwart’s school. I had a chance to try butter beer at Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter last fall and it was even better than I thought it might be! It’s a cream soda topped with a wonderful butterscotch whipped topping. My only advice based on our family’s experience is to NOT drink butter beer before you ride the crazy rides…if you get what I mean…
These cupcakes truly capture the flavors found in butter beer- the frosting in particular was AMAZING! These take a little time, but they are well worth the effort! Here we go!
INGREDIENTS:
For the cupcakes:
- 2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
- 3 large eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon butter flavoring
- 1/2 cup buttermilk (I used heavy cream and it worked fine)
- 1/2 cup cream soda
For the butterscotch ganache:
- 1 11-oz. package butterscotch chips
- 1 cup heavy cream
For the frosting:
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/3 cup butterscotch ganache
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon butter flavoring
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 16-oz. package powdered sugar
- a splash of milk or cream (as needed)
DIRECTIONS:
Cupcakes(makes 18):
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake pans with paper liners.
- Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream your butter until light and fluffy.
- Add your sugars and beat until well-combined.
- Beat in your eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- Beat in your vanilla and butter flavoring.
- Alternate adding your buttermilk, cream soda, and dry ingredients until all are well incorporated.
- Fill each cupcake liner 3/4 full, then bake for 15 to 17 minutes until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean and cake springs back to the touch.
- Cool completely on wire racks.
Butterscotch ganache:
- In a double boiler, combine butterscotch chips and heavy cream and stir until completely combined and smooth.
- Cool to room temperature.
- Remove 1/3 of a cup of ganache and set aside for use in frosting.
- Fill a squeeze bottle with remaining ganache and insert into the center of each cupcake, squeezing until filling begins to overflow.
Frosting:
- Cream butter in a large bowl until fluffy.
- Add in ganache, vanilla, butter flavoring, and salt and mix until well combined.
- Beat in powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until reaching desired consistency.
- Add milk or cream by the tablespoon as needed for consistency.
- Frost cupcakes and top with a drizzle of butterscotch ganache.
My thoughts: First, butter flavoring DOES exist- find it in your grocery with all other flavorings and extracts. (it smells like popcorn!) 🙂 Second, by squeeze bottle I mean a plastic bottle with a long tip that can easily poke down into each cupcake- I used a red bottle designed to hold ketchup that I found in the kitchen utensil aisle of Wal-Mart. Third, the frosting and filling are a MUST in this recipe. The cupcakes were really good- but time-consuming. If you want a QUICK butter beer fix I’d use a yellow cake mix and just make the ganache filling and the frosting. I hope you enjoy these– and for great step-by-step pictures go and visit Amy’s blog!!!
EASYBAKED 
Normally, I’m not a cupcake guy, but hey they’re Harry Potter-themed. I love it. That icing looks great.
Me too!!
I love Harry Potter! I can’t even begin to describe how nuts I am about the books, movies etc. One year my girlfriend’s made me Hogwarts shaped cake. I kid not. These cupcakes looks awesome, I’m saving these… might send them my girlfriends again for my b’day. hehe.
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I’ve been wondering what butterbeer from hp tastes like but never that I imagined I can taste it in a cupcake!!!! thanks for your recipe!
You are so welcome!
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This recipe looks delish. I live in Australia and we don’t have cream soda here. We have creaming soda, which apparently tastes the same but it’s bright pink, so this will obviously change the colour of the cupcakes. Is there an alternative I can use such as Sprite?
Honestly, I’d skip the cupcake recipe all-together. The filling and the frosting MAKE these…just use a box mix- or your favorite yellow cake recipe and fill them and frost them with the recipe. Bright pink cupcakes sound SO fun though– you might want to try that just for the fun of it! Good luck!!
I made this last night using creaming soda, and it didn’t change the colour of the cupcake.
Perfect!!
While I loved the flavors of the cake and the butterscotch panache, I loathe American buttercream frosting. I think its all sugar and no flavor. Can you think of a way I could possibly. Make this into an Italian or Swiss buttercream version?
Well, I’m not much of an experimenter when it comes to frosting. I stay pretty basic. I am a fan of a blog that does a great job with swiss meringue buttercreams in a variety of flavors though. Here’s a link to her recipes: The Catalyst Cupcakes She adds quite a few flavorings etc. to her frostings. I would imagine you could experiment with adding the butter flavor and ganache to her recipe and see how it turns out. Let me know!
This looks like a wonderful recipe! But I was wondering if there was any other way to make the ganache without a double boiler.
Another way to make this ganache would be to heat the cream in a regular saucepan until it is just starting to bubble at the edges. Add the chips, turn off the heat, cover the pan and allow everything to sit for about 5 minutes. Stir the melted chips with the cream and you should have the same result. Good luck– enjoy!
Thanks!
I made these and they turned out fabulous, thank you for sharing!
You’re welcome– so glad they turned out well for you!
I just made these and they look so good! Thank you for the recipe.
Awww– great job! They are beautiful- you really made them look yummy!! Thanks so much for sharing your picture– made me smile!
They don’t sell any type of butterscotch here in my country:( do you have any links of homemade butterscotch that I could use for this recipe?
I actually don’t– I googled “homemade butterscotch” and a TON of recipes popped up though. I hate to recommend one of them over the others since I haven’t tried any….? If you experiment will you share your results with us and tell us which recipe you used? I’m sure other people would love to know that answer to this question as well!!
hi just wondering can you make it without the butter flavouring seeing as I live in Ireland and you cant actually buy it unless you want to ship it from America, or could I use a substitute
You can try it and see..? I can’t think of a substitute….but maybe it won’t make much of a difference? Someday I just need to travel the world and bring ingredients to all my far-away friends (and see the world, too!)
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