Guest Post - Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

I haven't posted in a while. Half a month. Sorry! I actually haven't been cooking much because we've had an influx of leftovers lately from restaurants or easy dinners I made that I have either already posted here or aren't post worthy!

And last week we had a bathroom renovation going on so that was a minimal cooking week. But I cooked today (sorry, that is not what this post is about!) and I will be starting to make foods to freeze before Junior comes so I will be (hopefully) be making lots of things in the upcoming weeks - we only have 8 to go! Yikes!

The post below is from my favorite cousin-in-law and her experience baking cupcakes for the first time completely from scratch. She was really, really excited about this (she's just out of college and learning to cook more on her own!) so she wanted to share her recipe and experience. Good job, Melissa!

Also, please remember, if you, or anyone you know, plays fantasy baseball and has a draft coming up, tell them to head on over to RotoProfessor.com for lots of great tips, tricks and articles. Also, RotoProfessor's third annual Draft Guide is on sale now for just $6!! It is an electronic draft guide created on Excel and updates get sent to the buyer every 2-3 weeks before the season starts. This guide gets repeat buyers and rave reviews and is much cheaper than a magazine from the store! Also, anyone who buys the guide before March 15 is entered to win an autographed baseball by Michael Pineda!! What an awesome prize!

OK, and now, the guest post. Everything written below here are Melissa's words:

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream
By: Melissa

This was my first time making cupcakes and frosting from scratch. I bake cookies from scratch all the time, but have always been afraid to try any kind of cake...until I found this recipe from joythebaker.com. It seemed simple enough...AND IT WAS! Start to finish (including clean up) was just over an hour!

To see the original post, visit joythebaker.com and search "Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream".

Here's the recipe, almost word-for-word from Joy's. I made a few substitutions and I put those in (parentheses). This makes 12 cupcakes.


CUPCAKES

1 cup flour
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
3 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup whole milk (1/2 cup skim milk and 2 tbsp butter)
1 egg (3 tbsp egg beaters)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat over to 350 degrees.

Put flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and butter into a bowl. Mix until a sandy consistency and everything is combined. Gradually pour in half of the milk and beat until the milk is just incorporated.

Whisk the egg, vanilla and remaining milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds, then pour into the flour mixture and continue beating until just incorporated. Scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side/bottom. Continue mixing until the batter is smooth - just a few minutes. Don't overmix!

Spoon the batter into paper lined muffin tins (I used an ice cream scoop).


Bake for 20-25 minute . Let them cool in the pan a bit before putting them on a wire rack to cool completely.


VANILLA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
5 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp whole milk (2.5 tbsp skim milk)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Beat powdered sugar and butter together until well mixed. Combine milk and vanilla extract in a separate bowl, then pour the combination into the other mixture, slowly. Once all together, mix until light and fluffy.

DECORATE!

I have always wanted to try using a piping bag, so i made my own (sort of) using a gallon sized ziplock bag. It worked pretty well! Not too easy, but it wasn't a disaster. I topped mine off with some silver sprinkles from Wilton.

For my first attempt, I'm really happy. And so was my roommate and his friends! I will absolutely make these again!