Thursday, February 24, 2011

Valentine's Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for Valentine's Day. I shared them with my baby's teachers and my coworkers. When I brought these to work, I dropped them off in the kitchen...walked back to my desk...attempted to open an email to announce that they were there...by the time I got the email up my cubie neighbor told me there was one left! They disappeared in about 5 minutes!

I love the cake part of these but wasn't fully satisfied with the buttercream. It was super sweet and too almondy for me. I'll try something different next time!


Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing
Source: Annie's Eats and Stetted
Yield: 24 cupcakes

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing pans
1½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting pans
1½ cups cake flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1¾ cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1¼ cups milk

To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 350F. Line or grease cupcakes pans. In a medium bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking powder, and salt; whisk together to blend well and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed. Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Blend in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the milk. Beat each addition just until incorporated.

Divide the batter between the prepared baking pans. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until the cupcakes are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Transfer the pans to a wire rack and let cool 20 minutes. Let the cakes cool completely before frosting.

Buttercream
2 sticks butter, softened
6 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

Beat butter until creamy. Add the sugar, milk and extracts and beat, slowly at first, and then until nice and fluffy..

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What frosting talent! Thank you for your fine work here in this space. I have come to greatly look forward to your new posts to see what you're up to in the kitchen and your beautiful photographs. Have a wonderful Friday and weekend!