Baked Sunday Mornings: Tomato Soup Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting

I'm so glad that Tomato Soup Cupcakes with Marscapone Frosting were the assignment this week for Baked Sunday Mornings -- I have been thinking about trying this recipe since I saw it featured on Daily Candy last fall before Baked Explorations was even released.

This cupcake is not difficult to make.  You cream together butter with sugar and brown sugar, add in eggs, and then alternately incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, and baking powder) and condensed tomato soup that has been mixed with baking soda.  The resulting batter is strongly orange colored, like pumpkin cake. 

While the recipe says it yields 24 cupcakes, I made mine small (using a #20 scoop) so that they wouldn't overflow my scalloped cupcake papers, and I got more than three dozen.  The cupcakes are frosted with a mixture of butter, mascarpone cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla.  The frosting is rich and thick, with a full and luscious mouthfeel. 

I had no idea what these were going to taste like, so when the cupcakes were cooled and frosted, I eagerly took a bite.  I was astonished that the cupcake tasted exactly like pumpkin and spice.  The mascarpone frosting is outstanding and goes wonderfully with the spice flavors in the cake.  Unsure if the perceived pumpkin flavor was just the subliminal effect of the orange color, mix of spices, and mascarpone frosting playing tricks on my taste buds, I asked other people to try the cupcakes without revealing what was in them.  Not surprisingly, no one divined that tomato soup was the secret ingredient, but guesses ranged from pumpkin to carrot to apple to sweet potato to citrus.  I'm still marveling at how this chameleon of a cake can keep people guessing!

Recipe: "Tomato Soup Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.