So I have been on a bit of a baking kick lately. I think its because we have been sampling wedding cake and it made me want more :) I have been hunting online for some good recipes and landed on these today. With
Halloween coming up, I decided to make my cupcakes
Halloween themed.
I found the cupcake
recipie at
Amber's Delectable Delights.
White Cupcakes
Source: A Baker's Field Guide to Cupcakes By Dede Wilson
Yield: 12 cupcakes
Ingredients:
12 paper liners
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large egg whites
3/4 cup milk, at room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Place paper liners in all wells of one 12-cup cupcake tin.
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl to aerate and combine; set aside.
3. Whisk egg whites and milk together in a small bowl to combine; set aside.
4. In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar gradually, beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl once or twice. Beat in vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture in 4 additions, alternately with the egg white-milk mixture. Begin and end with the flour mixture, and beat briefly until smooth on low-medium speed after each addition.
5. Divide batter evenly among cupcake wells. Bake or about 20 minutes, or until edges turn light golden brown; a toothpick inserted in the center will show a few moist crumbs.
6. Cool pan on rack for 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Recipe Notes: This is a simple, moist white cake that can be varied endlessly. The cupcakes will keep for 2 days at room temperature in an airtight container or for 1 week frozen in an airtight container.
Amber had a
buttercream frosting recipe that went with this one, but I had seen an interesting looking recipe for frosting earlier this week on
allrecipes.com and had been wanting to try it out.
Grocery Store Frosting
Ingredients:
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 pounds confectioners' sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons water
Directions:
In a heavy duty mixer combine the shortening, butter or margarine, vanilla and water. Add the sugar and salt, beat until well mixed. Add a tablespoon or two more of water if needed. Turn mixer to the highest speed and beat for 15 minutes.
This frosting was
ridiculously easy to make. Only bad thing was that I ran out of clean spatulas to use because I kept licking them! I even let
Ariel (she was supervising my progress) have a little lick. She loved it too :)
And the result?!?
I'm pretty proud of myself. These are probably the prettiest (and tastiest) cupcakes I have ever made! I bought a Wilton cupcake decorator kit today at
Michaels. Basically was just a set of decorator tips and some bags with some simple instructions. Used my 40% off coupon from today's paper so it only cost like $5. After the wedding some friends and I are talking about taking a cake decorating class... I thought this would be a good way to see if I am any good or not. So far, looks like I don't suck at it. More to come :)
