What better to show up to a party with than cupcakes?
My friend, Brittany, was having a BBQ to christen her beautiful patio here in Philadelphia. It was fantastic! Grilled food, music, cold beers and of course, delicious beautiful cupcakes.
I decided to stick with the same yellow cake recipe I had used before (see previous post, although for fluffy moist cupcakes alter cooking time to 10-12 minutes), but didn't make any alterations. I topped them with butter frosting (recipe to follow). I did both vanilla and chocolate and topped each with sweet Jersey strawberries and blueberries. They were amazing. Next time, I would let the sliced strawberries dry out a little. They were quite juicy and it made the frosting a little runny.
My fans at our local pub were happy when I came by to deliver the extras. No one can say no to one of these beauties.
They get all the leftovers since the last thing I need is 6 extra cupcakes to sit in my kitchen. That would do nothing for my waistline. So off to the New Wave Cafe they go (but not after I had a couple myself, thank lord I biked 20 miles this weekend).
Can't wait to get back in the kitchen for my next batch, unfortunately my next trip to the kitchen will be to do dishes, but not until after a little R&R.
Butter Frosting (by Better Homes and Gardens)
Ingredients:
3/4 cups butter, softened
9 cups sifted powdered sugar (about 2lbs)
1/4 cup milk
2 tsps vanilla
Milk
1. In a very large mixing bowl beat butter until smooth. Gradually add 2 cups of the powdered sugar, beating well. Slowly beat in the 1/4 cup milk and the vanilla.
2. Gradually beat in remaining powdered sugar. Beat in enough additional milk to reach spreading consistency (I had added a little to much milk which made the vanilla frosting a little looser).
For Chocolate, prepare as above, except beat in 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder into butter and reduce powdered sugar by 1/2 cup.
I actually made the vanilla frosting as originally directed minus 1/2 cup of powdered sugar then after frosting half of the cupcakes (12) I added 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder to the remaining frosting and beat for 2 minutes. The chocolate frosting was my favorite by far, but many tasters loved the vanilla as well.
I did find a problem when using my 6-cupcake pan. The recipe made 30 cupcakes. I have two 12-cupcake pans and one 6-cupcake pan. It seems that my 6-cupcake pan actually cooks faster, so the bottoms actually burned, big bummer, although I just frosted and ate the tops myself.
Kristin 2 - Cupcakes 0
