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Tuesday 15 November 2011

National Vanilla Cupcake Day 2011


Greetings, dear Reader! Nearly already halfway through the week, I find myself once again catching up on blog posts. Up first is a quick and easy recipe I whipped up for National Vanilla Cupcake Day last Thursday. This time around, and unlike what I had done for National Chocolate Cupcake Day in mid-October, I went with mini cupcakes, and combined three separate recipes which can be found here, here, and here. This recipe makes about 3.5 dozen individual servings of deliciousness.


To get things started, preheat your oven to 350 °F and line your mini cupcake pans with liners. Next, gather the following dry ingredients and sift these into a bowl: 1.5 c cake flour, 1 c granulated sugar, 1.5 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt into a mixing bowl.


As for the liquid ingredients, first whip up until creamy a stick (1/2 c) of butter, microwaving for 10 seconds if needed to speed up the process. Separate two eggs and combine well the butter, egg yolks, 1.5 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 c sour cream and 1/2 c milk. Add this liquid mix to the dry mix, and stir until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk to soft peaks the egg whites and fold these into the batter again stirring just until smooth. Remember, the focus of these particular cupcakes is to try and create a light batter, so be sure not to over stir!


Using a small table spoon, fill up your cupcake liners with batter about 3/4 full. Get these into the oven for about 25 minutes or until golden brown and they pass the clean toothpick test. Meanwhile, whip up a quick batch of vanilla buttercream frosting.


With the cupcakes cooled, transfer the frosting into a corner-cut plastic baggy or piping bag and..well, frost the cupcakes. And if you've got them, top off the cupcakes with sprinkles or sanding sugar. With a firm exterior and fluffy (well, as fluffy as you can get for a small cupcake with little volume) interior, the sugar adds textural contrast to the creamy frosting and sweet cake. For the complete album, click here.

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