Who else loves a peach crisp or cobbler? I'm a massive fan of peach and anything with cinnamon! Taking the two together, I present: Peach Cobbler Cupcakes. These are essentially a cinnamon peach poundcake recipe in cupcake form. Inspired by a the warmth of a fruity cobbler classic, this super easy recipe will provide a dozen deliciously moist cupcakes with a lightly spiced buttercream to accompany.
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Why these work
- Pound cake style cakes - the cupcake here is a variation of a pound cake batter, making it moist, dense and delicious!
- Packed with canned peaches - I don't know about you, but fresh peach season is too short where I am and I love peach! So, I often find myself with canned peaches. The tinned peach works great in this recipe, plus the juices, which have marinated with the peaches in the can are used to pack extra flavour!
- Cozy spice - a mix of cinnamon and nutmeg give you all the warming flavours of a classic cobbler in these cupcakes.
- Cinnamon and peach frosting - a super simple buttercream spiced with cinnamon and a touch of peach flavour from your canned peaches. Dreamy, creamy and piped in a silky swirl.
Canned versus Fresh Peaches
There are some simple reasons to opt for canned peaches in this recipe:
- Quality and availability - handily, canned peaches are available year round and quite simply, peaches in Britain are not great. Even when they're in season, they tend to run small and underripe. If you're in an area with a great peach season or access to good ripe fruits, try out fresh peach in this recipe, but if not, know that this recipe was developed with canned peaches first!
- Canning liquid - tinned peaches will give you canning juices that have been marinating with the peaches. This gives you the opportunity to impart extra flavor and moistness in your bake. You can marinate your own fresh peaches, or macerate them with some sugar to release juices, like you would do with the fruits in my Blueberry Strawberry Shortcake Trifle. But, this will inevitably not have soaked with the peaches as long as the canned option.
Ingredient Notes
For the cakes you'll need:
- Butter - unsalted butter, softened at room temperature.
- Sugar - granulated sugar or caster sugar.
- Light brown sugar - the brown sugar will compliment the richness with a light molasses-y flavour. The measurements here are firmly packed.
- Eggs - large eggs, ideally at room temperature for baking.
- Vanilla
- Flour - all purpose or plain flour work in this recipe.
- Baking soda
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Canned peaches - for this recipe, you'll only need one standard sized tin of peaches. I opted to use a tin of peach halves, which comes with two peaches, halved and about ¾ cup of juices. In the stream of the recipe, I only use one half of a tinned peach, but I use most of the juices. You can use the leftover peach halves for decoration, save them for porridge or ice cream, or just eat them!
How to Make Peach Cobbler Cupcakes
This is a super simple recipe to whip together and shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes.
- Begin by filling your tray with cupcake cases and preheat your oven to 350°F (175C/155C Fan).
- In a medium bowl, mix together your dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices. Set this aside.
- On a small plate roughly chop half a peach and set aside as well.
- In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together your sugar and butter until well creamed.
- Add your eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, and then the vanilla.
- Then incorporate your dry ingredients in alternating additions to the liquid (the canning juices). I always start with my dry ingredients, which I add in thirds, interspersed with my liquid by halves. So you're aiming to start and end with adding dry.
- Prior to adding the final third of the dry ingredients, mix your chopped peaches with the flour mixture. Then add this to the batter and mix to incorporate.
- Spoon the batter into your cases, filling about half way or three quarters.
- Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes - keeping an eye after 20 minutes and checking with a skewer.
- Once a skewer or toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean, you know you're done!
- Once baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin until you can handle these and move to a wire rack to cool completely.
Tips
- Mixing the peach pieces with the flour will help the peaches to incorporate into the mixture more evenly.
- Depending on your oven, you may want to flip your tray around halfway through baking if your oven, like mine, cooks a little unevenly.
- Test cupcakes are done by inserting a toothpick in the centre of one of the central cupcakes. Kind of like a cake, the centre of the pan will normally be done last, even when they're cupcakes!
Cinnamon Peach Buttercream
Cupcakes aren't really cupcakes without icing... For these, I've paired them with the perfect cinnamon buttercream!
Buttercream is my favourite and my go-to frosting for all occasions. Cinnamon buttercream is a super simple version, adding just a bit of ground cinnamon to the mix, which comes through really well. As I still had some extra juices from the tin, I also figured, why not add that in too!
For buttercream, you will need:
- Butter - unsalted butter, softened at room temperature. This needs to be soft enough to beat, but shouldn't be melted.
- Powdered sugar - or icing sugar, sifted to remove lumps.
- Cinnamon
- Vanilla
- Juice from canned peaches
- Milk
- Food colouring gels - optional, but to get a gorgeous peach colour, you can add some dye. I used a small amount of Wilton Peach Icing Color.
I'd definitely recommend using an electric stand mixer for this, but I appreciate that may not be an option. If you don't have access to a stand mixer, you can cream this together by hand, but it will take a bit longer.
- Beat the butter for a minute until it is creamy.
- Next, add the sifted icing sugar. I do this in two additions. First, I add half and beat to combine, then I add the second half and begin beating.
- While continuing to beat, add in your cinnamon, vanilla and peach juices. Beat for a couple of minutes on a low setting until well mixed and creamy.
Depending on what you want to do with the icing, you may then want to add a bit of milk. The milk will thin out the frosting and should be used sparingly to avoid making this into a glaze. If you want to pipe your frosting, adding a teaspoon of milk will make all the difference to the ease of using it!
All that's left is to cover your cakes in the frosting and enjoy!
Variations
There are a few quick and easy alternatives you can try with this recipe:
- Using fresh peaches - one easy variation is to swap the tinned peach for fresh. This does mean a bit of a difference to the recipe. The main liquid in this recipe is a half cup of peach juices from the tin. If you want to use fresh peaches instead, you absolutely can. You will, however, need to replace the liquid here with an alternative to the juice from the tin. As this is technically a poundcake, you could revert to classics such as buttermilk or soured milk. Alternatively, you could try a peach juice - either made from fresh peaches or store bought.
- Make as a single Spiced Peach Cake - these cupcakes were developed based on my classic pound cake recipe and the batter could be used to make a single larger cake if that's preferred. The only thing you would need to change is the time in the oven!
- Different frostings - these cupcakes would go great with my basic Cinnamon Buttercream, Vanilla Buttercream, or Dulce de Leche Buttercream.
- Additional toppings - add some more chopped peach to the top or even give these a bit of an extra crumble crunch with some Oat Crisp Topping added as decoration to the frosting. Follow a process similar to the one I use in my Peach Crisp Cinnamon Rolls to bake the crisp pieces on their own before using for decoration.
FAQs
Spiced peach and cinnamon cupcakes keep quite well and will stay fresh for about 3 or 4 days if well wrapped and stored in an airtight container. Due to the buttercream, best practice would be to store in the refrigerator if intending to leave overnight or if it is warm in your kitchen. If you've chilled the cupcakes, allow these to come back to room temperature before serving for best flavour.
Absolutely, these peach and cinnamon cupcakes freeze really well. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely and frost as directed. Then place on a lined tray in the freezer to flash freeze (usually a couple of hours to solidify the frosting). Then you can wrap them individually or store in freezer safe bags for up to 3 months. Allow to defrost before serving.
Yes! This is a recipe for making cinnamon peach cupcakes with tinned peaches. While the cupcakes can be made with fresh peaches, canned peaches are more widely available in my area and provide peach juices from the tin, which can be used to offer additional flavour to the bake.
Looking for more peach recipes? Try:
Peach Cobbler Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cinnamon Peach Cupcake Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened at room temperature
- ½ cup light brown sugar firmly packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar or caster sugar
- 2 large eggs ideally at room temperature
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1½ cups all purpose flour or plain flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- pinch ground nutmeg
- ½ cup juice from canned peaches
- ½ canned peach chopped
Cinnamon Peach Buttercream Ingredients
- ¾ cup unsalted butter softened at room temperature
- 3 cups powdered sugar or icing sugar, sifted
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon juice from canned peaches
- 1 teaspoon milk
- food colouring gels (optional)
Instructions
Instructions for Cinnamon Peach Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175C/160C Fan) and prepare cupcake tin. This recipe will be sufficient for 12 regular sized cupcakes.
- In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and then add the vanilla.
- Add the flour mixture and peach juice in alternating additions - first ⅓ of the flour, then half the liquid, ⅓ of the flour and then remaining liquid. Before adding the final ⅓ of the flour, mix this together with the chopped peach to coat in the flour. This will help the peach to distribute in the mixture as opposed to sinking to the bottom. Add this to the batter and mix to combine.
- Fill your cupcake moulds about ½ to ⅔ full and bake for about 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
- Once baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.
Instructions for the Cinnamon Peach Buttercream
- Using an electric stand mixer, beat the butter with the flat paddle attachment until creamy. Add the powdered sugar (best if done in two additions), cinnamon, vanilla and canned peach juices, beating together until smooth. You may want to add a bit of milk as well for a slightly thinner consistency if you are planning to pipe the icing. Spread or pipe over the cupcakes.
queenmothermyrt
They look and I'm sure that they taste fabulous!! 😀 xoxoxoxoxoxox