I’ve made a lot of cupcakes in the past 6 months. Dark chocolate cupcakes… milk chocolate cupcakes… marble cupcakes… red velvet cupcakes… lemon cupcakes… tropical cupcakes… “shirley temple” cupcakes… and classic, traditional vanilla cupcakes too.
To me, being able to bake a really good vanilla cupcake matters. When I get a new baking book one of the very first things I make from it is a simple vanilla cake recipe. Luckily most of my baking books have at least one ;-) A few weeks ago I picked up the book Hello Cupcake! and of course had to try out their vanilla cupcake recipe :)
While the book is full of creative, imaginative and fun decorating ideas, they also have recipes. And not just “from scratch” recipes but also recipes for jazzing up box cake mix as well… in case you want to go that route. What I tried was their “from scratch” recipe and I was underwhelmed with the results as I found them to be dry. Did I overbake them? Perhaps. But in my own defense, I made full-size, not mini, cupcakes and I took them out after only 15 minutes of baking. My rule is to never open the oven in the first 15 minutes. Does my rule need to be adjusted? I thought it was possible. Luckily I’d only made one tray as a test – so I made the other tray (this time with a few mini chocolate chips in the batter and I’ll blog those at some point I’m sure! LOL) and baked only 13 minutes but still too dry for me.
I should mention that I included vanilla bean in the batter. I don’t think that caused these cupcakes to be dry – but anything’s possible.
Vanilla Bean Cupcakes
adapted from “Hello, Cupcake”
2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean pod
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
Preheat oven to 350F
Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.
Combine the milk, oil and vanilla extract in a small bowl. Scrape the insides of one vanilla bean pod into the same bowl.
In another medium bowl, using a stand or electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add 1/3 of the flour mixture… combine just until blended
Add 1/2 of the milk mixture… combine just until blended
Add 1/2 of the remaining flour mixture… combine just until blended
Add the remaining milk mixture… combine just until blended
Add the remaining flour mixture and combine just until blended. Ensure the entire mixture is blended.
Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full… as written the recipe states to bake 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Be very careful of the bake time – check them at the 10 minute mark to be safe – do not overbake these or they will be dry.
Remove from oven and cool on wire rack for 10 minutes… then remove from pan and place on wire rack until cooled completely
Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting
This is very simple. Use my favorite buttercream icing recipe posted here and to it add the scraped inside of two vanilla bean pods. If you choose to scale the buttercream recipe in half, use one vanilla bean pod instead of two.
If you’ve made these cupcakes before using the Hello Cupcake! recipe, please let me know if yours were dry as well. I certainly don’t want to think poorly of it if the dry result was because of me. If you give this recipe a try, I’d love to know your results too. I had high expectations that these cupcakes just didn’t live up to. Oh well, at least the icing was fantastic ;-)
Have a delicious day!
Posted in buttercream icing, cupcakes, recipes, vanilla | 8 Comments »
If baking is something you want to do… often… and well… it’s essential to find your “go to” recipes. Having them in your repertoire is the first step to making your baking life easier and less time consuming. Never underestimate the power of a good basic cake recipe… and a good basic frosting recipe too :)
For me, the recipe for Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake (DPPC) has proven time and time again to be the best basic cake recipe I have in my baking arsenal. I’ve shared it with you guys in in this post and I’ve heard from so many of you that it is indeed the perfect basic cake recipe.
I used it here for lemon cupcakes that I topped with cream cheese icing
I used it for the orange cupcakes and raspberry cupcakes pictured below (as well as the first/cover photo)…
But it started here when I baked it as the recipe was written for one of our Daring Bakers challenges (the pic is from when I re-did the recipe, not the original time)
The recipe itself is so incredibly versatile that I recommend it every time I get asked if I have a good basic cake recipe. I’ve made it more often than I can count and I don’t have pictures of each time. DJ’s son “graduated” from 5th grade yesterday and I’m going to use the recipe again for the cake I’m making for his party this weekend. Some of you have read the recipe and told me “but I don’t want to make a *lemon* cake”. Okay fine… omit the lemon zest in the batter and you have a basic white cake… a VERY GOOD basic white cake :) The point is that by having a good basic cake recipe, you can add extracts/flavorings and colors (like I did with the orange cupcakes and raspberry cupcakes posted a couple of times above) and play around with it and customize it to your liking. Heck, add chocolate chips or pistachios if they float your boat. As long as you have a good solid consistently performing basic cake reicpe, you’ve opened up a world of possibilities!
Dorie also has a really great Cocoa Buttermilk cake recipe too… it’s in her book Baking From My Home To Yours (available thru Amazon.com at an amazing STEAL of a price!). I used it to make these cupcakes pictured below…
And I’ve already pointed you guys to my absolute favorite buttercream icing in this tutorial of how to make it. I wish I could take credit for creating that recipe… but it’s just something I came across one time and found it to be so perfect that I recommend it anytime someone asks “do you have a good buttercream icing recipe”. Same rule applies here about having a good basic recipe and being able to add to it. I’ve added lemon zest to it (paired it with the DPPC recipe) and created these…
… paired it with the DPPC recipe and just colored the icing to create these…
… added cocoa powder to it and created chocolate buttercream… added peanut butter to it and created peanut butter buttercream… added mint extract and icing color to it and made mint buttercream as well
But these are my no-brainer, go-to, consistent performers. You probably have others in your toolkit that are perfect for you. I’ve found that if you don’t have great basic recipes, you end up in a never-ending-cycle of time-consuming experiments… sometimes at the expense of your guests taste buds.
I recently made three dozen cupcakes for a pot-luck dinner and instead of using my tried and true DPPC recipe, I decided to try something new. In a word… no good. They were dry and lacked flavor – redeemed solely by the beauty of the frosting. But beautiful and delicious frosting can only hide so much and more than half the cupcakes were untouched. Sure didn’t make me feel very good but I learned a valuable lesson… to trust what had proven itself worthy of being called my go-to white cake recipe… to trust in Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake :)
If you’re going to invest the time and money (hey, ingredients aren’t cheap! LOL) to make something from scratch, you owe it to yourself (and your guests) to make it look **and** taste good too. So invest the time and find your great basic recipes… then trust them :)
Have a delicious day!
Posted in Chocolate, buttercream icing, cupcakes, fruit, lemon, peppermint, recipes, vanilla | 4 Comments »
