MBCC: Spiced Vanilla Honey Tea Cupcakes

I am beyond excited to share this recipe! But first, I should give a little background. The owner of a blog I really like to visit, Jamieanne of The Sweetest Kitchen, has decided to hold a cupcake competition each month. She's called it the Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge (which I have shortened to MBCC in the title), where each month there is a secret ingredient that is revealed and then competitors have to create a cupcake that incorporates this ingredient. This is the very first month and I immediately knew that if I got the time, I wanted to enter. At other blogs I like to visit, I've seen people competing in such cupcake competitions as Iron Cupcake, and I always wanted to try my hand at it because it seemed like a lot of fun. And not only that, but it would give me the chance to try and create my own recipes and expand my horizon as a baker. This competition has given me just the chance! I would encourage anyone to check it out as I have already had a lot of fun with this month's challenge and am going to continue entering each month that I get a chance! For all the info, Jamieanne has compiled all of the rules and guidelines right here.

So, onto the actual cupcake! This month's secret ingredient was tea. Tea! I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it before, but I absolutely love tea. It's my favorite drink and we drink it like crazy at my house. We can make a huge pitcher of black tea and have it be gone or close to gone the next day. (And did I mention there's only 3 of us?) After my last adventure of creating my own coconut muffin recipe, I was super excited to try and create another recipe I could call my own. I started thinking of flavor combinations that I thought would be good. Spice, of course. But what about vanilla? And honey? How about all of them?! Sounds good to me! So I took my favorite yellow cake recipe and started tweaking and changing it to my liking.

For the spices, I knew I wanted cinnamon, and nutmeg sounded good too, but what about some ginger? I've actually never used ground ginger in a recipe before, but it sounded like it would be a good addition, so I added it in. I changed the regular sugar in the recipe to vanilla sugar and cut the sugar down a bit to replace some of it with honey. And of course, I put tea bags into the warm milk called for in the recipe to steep. For the frosting, I was thinking either a honey Swiss meringue buttercream or a cooked frosting that had spices in it. I've made a cooked frosting before and wasn't too sure if I liked it. I've been meaning to try one again to see if I like it any better, but because I knew that I already loved Swiss meringue buttercream, that one won. I knew that I had to go through multiple trials with my coconut muffins to get them perfect, so I was prepared to do so again with this recipe. So with a determination, I went off into my kitchen to bake.
After the batter was prepared, I tasted it. It was good! But still needed a little something extra. I doubled the cinnamon, and although I had initially decided not to add vanilla extract because I had already used vanilla sugar, I went ahead and added some anyway and tasted the batter again. Wow!! It was delicious! I never expected it to be that good. My spirits flew. Could these cupcakes actually turn out really good on the first try? I put them in the oven and crossed my fingers. I pulled them out and let them cool and then started on the SMBC. I subtracted a little sugar from my usual standards (1/4 cup of sugar per egg white) since I was adding honey. The butter remained at 1/4 cup per egg white. After making the cupcakes, I actually didn't have too much honey left. But that didn't matter as only a small amount sufficed just fine. My planned recipe had called for more, but it didn't need it. I added some vanilla to keep with the vanilla honey theme and it was delicious! So after frosting the cupcakes and snapping pictures, I bit into one. WOW! It was out of this world! And there are really no words to describe how proud of myself I was. The cupcakes were so tender and had lovely flavor and the buttercream was perfect for them. I am so thankful to Jamieanne's contest even if I don't win, because it has given me the chance to see that I can come up with my own recipes and have them turn out well, and allowed me to have so much fun and gain confidence as a baker at the same time. I look forward to entering her contest again and again!

Spiced Vanilla Honey Tea Cupcakes (original yellow cake recipe from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman; all tweaks and changes made by yours truly)
Makes 12 cupcakes (**Again, I will warn you as I did with the coconut muffins, I have only ever made half of this recipe before, never the full recipe. But I will state again that I have never had problems scaling up or down recipes, so this full recipe should be fine.)

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 2 black tea bags
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup vanilla sugar (If you don't have vanilla sugar, you can use regular granulated and increase the amount of vanilla extract to 2 teaspoons.)
  
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• pinch ground nutmeg

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard cupcake pan with liners.
2. In a small, microwave-safe, microwave the milk for about a minute or until hot. Remove from the microwave and add the tea bags. Let the tea bags steep in the milk as you prepare the other ingredients.

3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and honey until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well.

4. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Retrieve the tea-infused milk and squeeze out any milk that was absorbed by the tea bags back into the rest of the milk. With the mixture running, add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with the tea-infused milk. Mix just until combined.

5. Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake liners and bake the cupcakes for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Vanilla Honey Swiss Meringue Buttercream (from my own mind)
Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• pinch salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. Fill a large saucepan with about an inch of water and bring it to a simmer. In a heat friendly mixing bowl, place the egg whites, sugar, and salt, and fit the bowl over top of the pan, making sure that the simmering water does not touch the bottom of the bowl. Whisk the egg mixture constantly until a candy thermometer reads 160 degrees, about 5 minutes. If you don't have a candy thermometer, dip your finger into the egg mixture and rub it between your fingers. If it feels hot to the touch and it no longer feels grainy from the sugar, the mixture is ready.
2. Place the egg mixture in a bowl of a stand mixer and fit the stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk the mixture until it forms a meringue and comes to room temperature, about 5-7 minutes. (Feel the bowl in order to tell if it has come to room temperature. If the bowl no longer feels warm at all, it's good to go.)

3. Switch to the paddle attachment and put the mixer on low speed. Add the butter one tablespoon at a time, waiting a couple seconds between each tablespoon. Once all of the butter has been added, turn the mixer on high and beat it until it forms a smooth, creamy buttercream, about 6-10 minutes. If at any time the mixture looks curdled, don't be alarmed. This is normal; just keep beating and the mixture will come back together. Also, if it ever appears to be very soupy, again, keep mixing, it'll thicken up.
4. Once the buttercream is smooth and creamy, add the honey and vanilla on low speed and continue mixing for a minute or two to completely incorporate the ingredients and to remove any air pockets. Use to frost cupcakes and enjoy!!
   

The winner of July’s Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge will receive prizes from:

• Bake It Pretty; $5 electronic gift card
• Beanilla; Tahitian vanilla fleur de sel & 3 organic Indonesian vanilla beans
• Rishi Tea; the new Tsuki tea pot and 2 tins of tea
• Soapylove Glycerin Soap Design; a Soapy Pop
• Sweet Cuppin Cakes; a prize pack worth $25

Thank you to all our prize sponsors!

Almond Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

So here's recipe #2 in my attempt to post the three recipes I made while my laptop had died on me as quickly as possible. It's funny. When I made these, it actually wasn't because I expressly desired to eat a cupcake, but merely because I really wanted to make some since I hadn't in a long time. I thought about maybe a chocolate cupcake at first but decided I wanted something different and came to an almond cupcake. Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE almond extract? I do, really and truly. I have to admit that I was apprehensive the first time I bought it. I always seemed to read over reviews claiming that the almond in the recipe was too strong, so I came to the conclusion that this stuff could quickly become overpowering, which I don't like in a recipe. But I thought I'd give the extract a try anyway since I saw it so many times when looking through recipes. To my delight, when a first opened the bottle and gave it a whiff, I recognized the flavor! It was just like those Chinese marble cookies from Wegman's that I love! Sure enough, when I tasted it, that was indeed the flavor and my love for almond extract (which I don't find overpowering at all) has been going strong since.

When I began searching for a recipe, I found that it's kind of hard to find just a plain almond cupcake recipe. Most of the recipes I found paired the almond with something else, like chocolate or fruit or what not, or they used actual almond meal in the recipe and I didn't want that. I just wanted a nice, plain almond flavor using extract. Finally I came across this recipe on Recipezaar and it sounded like a winner. I did, however, double the almond extract. At first I was going to pair these cupcakes with an almond Swiss meringue buttercream, but eventually decided against it. Even though I have a love for almond extract, I thought almond on almond might not be exciting enough. In the end, I decided to go with this chocolate buttercream from Joy the Baker that I've been dying to try. I ended up with a nice and tender almond cupcake that was paired with a very delicious chocolate buttercream, neither flavors overpowering the other. And, I finally got to use my 1M tip! Hurrah! Now on to the recipe.

Almond Cupcakes (adapted from Recipezaar)
Makes 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 teaspoons almond extract (If you don't like as much almond flavor, you can reduce the extract back down to it's original measurement, 1 1/2 teaspoons)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 12-cup cupcake tins with liners.
2. Cream the butter at medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and extracts and beat until combined.
3. Combine the baking powder, salt, and flour in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until combined.
4. Divide the batter in between 24 cups and bake the cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 17-20 minutes. (I seem to remember my batch taking only about 17 minutes to bake, so make sure to watch them.) Allow the cupcakes to cool for a couple minutes in the pans and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

The "Best" Chocolate Buttercream (from Joy the Baker)
Makes enough to generously frost 24 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (I used salted butter)
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt (I didn't add this since I used salted butter, but in the end I did end up using another small pinch of salt)
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup heavy cream (I would halve this...more notes below)
  
• 2/3 cup Ovaltine
  

Directions

1. Cream together the butter, cocoa powder, and salt. The mixture will be very thick. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the sides and then add the powdered sugar. Turn the mixer on low and mix in the powdered sugar slowly while adding the milk and vanilla extract. As the sugar incorporates, raise the speed of the mixer and beat the frosting. Beat until smooth.
2. In a 2-cup measuring glass, mix together the heavy cream and Ovaltine. Turn the mixer on medium speed and stream in the Ovaltine mixture slowly until you have reached the desired consistency. You may not need the full amount of cream and Ovaltine. (In my experience, I ended up barely needing any of it. I actually ended up adding a bit more Ovaltine to my buttercream, so I would highly suggest halving the cream but keeping the Ovaltine amount the same.)

Just Plain Good Cupcakes

Today's recipe is one of my all-time favorite cupcake recipes. It's originally from the book Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos. I've made this recipe countless times, and the recipe as is was good, but through experimenting, I've found that two small tweaks I made to the recipe make it excellent. This recipe and my post on the yellow cupcakes are my two absolute favorite vanilla cake recipes. I find that vanilla cake is much trickier to make homemade because sometimes a recipe can be kind of dry, not flavorful enough, or sometimes it can even end up tasting like cornbread. But these cupcakes are wonderfully moist, have a nice and noticeable vanilla flavor, certainly taste like a cupcake, and really are just plain good. They're actually so moist that a little bit of the cupcake always sticks to my silicone liners!

The changes I made to the recipe to make it great were super simple. Subtract just a tiny bit of flour and up the vanilla. As I said, the cupcakes were good as is, but each time I made them I found them to be a little dense and the vanilla flavor wasn't as strong as I wanted it to be. I find that when you're working with just vanilla as a flavor, you really can't be shy when it comes to the vanilla extract. You have to add in a good bit otherwise the flavor just won't be noticeable enough. So I doubled the vanilla and subtracted a little less than 2 tablespoons of flour, and they were absolutely perfect. I really encourage you to try out the recipe. It only makes four, but you can certainly double it or quadruple it if you like. Plus, it's a super quick and easy recipe. You don't need electric mixer or anything. I whip them together with a sturdy whisk just fine.

Just Plain Good Cupcakes (adapted from Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos)
Makes 4 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, lightly spooned and evenly swept
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/4 cup buttermilk (You can just use the sour milk trick that I always use. Place a 1/4 tablespoon [you can eyeball a half of 1/2 tablespoon measuring spoon] of lemon juice or vinegar in a 1/4 cup measuring cup. Fill the rest of the way with milk and let sit for 5-10 minutes before using)
  
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 4 muffin cups with liners.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the melted butter to the flour mixture and stir until pasty and moist.
   
3. In a small bowl, combine buttermilk (or sour milk) and baking soda. Stir to mix. Stir in the egg yolk and vanilla. Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a sturdy whisk until well combined.
4. Divide the batter evenly among the 4 muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

You can frost them with whatever frosting you like. Mine are frosted with one of my favorites: French Silk frosting. (Just halve the recipe there to make enough for the four cupcakes.)

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Nope, still no Dulce de Leche Duos yet. (Still haven't gotten my butt up to the store to buy the frackin' stuff!) But, luckily, this recipe is worthy of just as much enthusiasm. It's delicious! The cupcake recipe is one I've used before. It's the same one I used for my yellow cupcakes and is my stand by yellow cupcake recipe. The only difference this time was that I used regular vanilla extract instead of vanilla butter & nut flavoring, and this is the first time I've done so. I was afraid that the flavoring might overpower the lovely taste of the vanilla beans in the frosting, and certainly didn't want that!

So now that I've mentioned it, on to the frosting. Ugh...it is amazing. I was afraid at first that it might be too plain tasting, but I've learned that I should never doubt the awesome powers of a vanilla bean. If you've never used vanilla beans before, I really recommend you try them. I know, they can be pretty expensive, but I happen to know that you can buy them SUPER cheap off of eBay (and they're great quality too) if that's your thing or you can even buy them cheaper at Costco. That's where I got my last bunch of vanilla beans. They're certainly worth the investment because their flavor is out of this world. It's intensely vanilla, so much more flavor than just using extract, and they really shined in the buttercream. Plus, of course, I always love the look of those little specks of vanilla bean seeds. I left the image above a little larger this time, so make sure to click to get the full size and see all those lovely seeds!

Anyways, back to the actual frosting. It's a Swiss meringue buttercream and, again, if you haven't tried this buttercream, you really need to. Forget the things you've heard about it (if you have heard anything), and give it a go. I really have Cassie from How to Eat a Cupcake to thank from turning me on to this buttercream, and it's her standards for butter that I use. She uses only 1/4 cup of butter per egg white, and I find that to be the perfect amount. Almost all other recipes I've seen use way more than that, and I can only imagine why people think the frosting tastes like a stick of butter...because it probably does! 1/4 cup per egg white makes the perfect butteriness, I think. This frosting is creamy, not too sweet, and has wonderful flavor. It can seem a little intimidating and is a little time consuming, but it's really not so hard after all and is so worth it. So definitely try it!

For the cupcake recipe, go to my other post here. Again, the only thing I did differently this time was to use regular vanilla extract instead of vanilla butter & nut.

Vanilla Bean Swiss Meringue Buttercream (From my own mind. :] )
Makes enough to generously frost 12 cupcakes (plus probably have a little left over).

Ingredients

• 3 egg whites
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• pinch salt
• 3/4 cup (12 tablespoons/1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 vanilla bean (about a 4 to 4 1/2 inch piece), split and seeds scraped

Directions

1. Fill a large pot with about an inch of water. Place on stove and bring water to a simmer. Place egg whites, sugar, and salt in a large, heatproof bowl and place the bowl over the pot of simmering water (make sure that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl).
2. Whisk egg white mixture constantly until a candy thermometer reads 160 degrees F or until the mixture feels hot to the touch and no longer grainy when rubbed between your fingers, about 5 minutes.
3. Put the egg mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and whisk on medium high speed until the meringue comes to room temperature, about 5 to 7 minutes. (Feel the bowl in order to tell if it's come to room temperature or not...if the bowl no longer feels warm at all, you're good to go.)
4. Switch to the paddle attachment, and on low speed, add the butter one tablespoon at a time. Don't be alarmed if the mixture seems liquidy at first. Increase the speed to high and beat until the mixture is thick and creamy, about 6 to 10 minutes. Also don't be alarmed if your buttercream appears to have curdled at some point. Just keep beating, and it will come back together. (I have pictures of what it looks like curdled here, under step three in the buttercream directions.)
5. Once mixture has become thick and creamy, reduce speed to low and add extract and vanilla bean seeds and mix until combined and also to remove any air pockets. Use to frost cupcakes and enjoy! :)

I finally remembered to do a different kind of pattern when piping! Oh, but I did finally get the 1M tip I've been wanting, but of course, I didn't get a large coupler which is needed for the 1M tip...but that's okay, I want to get some disposable piping bags too (as I actually always just use a ziploc bag). But for now, I think my #32 tip still does a pretty good job.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

The desire to try this recipe came from, of course, the classic peanut butter and chocolate combination, Reese's peanut butter cups. I actually hadn't had one in a long time until my dad bought a Valentine's box of mini Reese's on sale after Valentine's Day. While I like Reese's, I have this weird thing about peanut butter where I only eat it when I truly desire to eat it. I know that sounds totally weird and confusing, but it's kind of like this: for example, I could eat chocolate all the time. I adore it, and can eat it over and over without ever getting sick of it. But with peanut butter, if I eat too much of it in a short amount of time, I get tired of it and lose interest. So many of the minis disappeared without me eating a single one. It wasn't until there were only a couple left that I had one and suddenly realized how I had forgotten about how good they were. So I had to try the combo in cupcake form!

I planned to make them as chocolate cupcakes with a peanut butter frosting, and in particular, was eyeing this recipe of Ina's. But it had a couple of things in the recipe that I usually don't keep on hand and I also finally decided that I wanted a predominantly peanut butter taste than chocolate. I felt that if I made chocolate cupcakes, the chocolate flavor would be stronger than the peanut butter, and I really wanted the peanut butter to shine. So I found this recipe on Allrecipes. One thing that really stood out to me was that the recipe had cream of tartar in it. I've never in my life seen a cupcake recipe or any cake recipe besides Angel Food that had cream of tartar in it. I also read some of the reviews and decided to use oil in place of shortening. And my lord, the resulting cupcake was INCREDIBLY soft and fluffy! I honestly don't think I've ever made cupcakes as soft as these, and I have to think that it was the cream of tartar that did it. It definitely got me thinking about finding other recipes that used tartar in it or even coming up with my own that has it in the recipe. In the end, the cupcake was delicious and definitely great for the first peanut butter cupcake recipe I tried. I paired it with my old standby chocolate buttercream and it had a nice, Reese's flavor. I eventually would like to try the reverse, chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, but for now, these were great.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes (adapted from Allrecipes)
I halved the recipe twice and had enough batter for 7 cupcakes. A read a lot of reviews that said they were able to get about 30 cupcakes, so assume that this full recipe will make about 28-30.

Ingredients

• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• a pinch of salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners or grease and flour cups.
2. In a large bowl, mix together brown sugar, oil, and peanut butter and beat until thoroughly combined. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt in a medium bowl; stir into the batter alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Spoon into the prepared cups.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the top of the cupcakes spring back when light pressed (or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Don't be fooled by the cupcakes like I was. I thought 15 minutes was too little as almost all cupcakes take at least 18 minutes to bake. The tops to me still looked a little wet and so I didn't even test them at 15 minutes. 2 minutes later they were starting to brown, although still looking a little wet on top, but I checked them anyway. Sure enough, they were done, so don't be fooled!) Cool in the pan about 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Creamy Chocolate Frosting (from Allrecipes)
This recipe makes enough to thinly frost about 24 cupcakes, so if you're making the full cupcake recipe, you may want to times the recipe by 1.5.

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups confectioner's sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 6 tablespoons butter (I always use salted. If you only have unsalted, add a good pinch of salt)
• 5 tablespoons evaporated milk (I always use regular 2% milk since I almost never have evaporated milk on hand. But if you have it, definitely use it)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, sift together confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter until smooth, then gradually beat in sugar mixture alternately with the milk. Blend in vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. If necessary, adjust consistency with more milk or sugar (or cocoa powder). Use to frost cupcakes.

By the way, I totally meant to pipe a different kind of pattern on these cupcakes since I all too often just go back to the classic swirl. But there's just something about the swirl that captivates me and so I just did it by instinct! I think what I'm getting tired of is the fact that I actually only have one star tip, a Wilton #32 open star that I've used for all of the cupcakes I've posted so far. (The only other tips I have are two petal tips, a leaf tip, and a very small round tip that I actually haven't even used yet...I find trying to make buttercream flowers intimidating!) I've been dying to get a 1M tip that seems to be the standard for the classic swirl but just haven't dragged myself up to Michael's to get it. But luckily, tomorrow I have to head up there anyway to get some stretcher strips for a new painting of mine, so as long as I remember, I'm definitely getting it then!

Brown Sugar Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Caramel Buttercream

Phew! Rather long title, huh? I decided that was a little too much for the photo, so I left it out, ha ha. I've been making a lot of cupcakes recently, but at least have been getting quite a workout shoveling snow! 28 inches was the official measurement by our yardstick! And we're due to get more snow tomorrow afternoon, 10-15 inches, according to the news!! I don't think our area has ever gotten so much snow in so little time, it's ridiculous! But, it's been closing schools, so that's been one positive thing about it.

Anyways, back to the cupcakes. These are awesome, the cupcake is incredibly moist, and the buttercream is simply delicious! The cupcake part I've actually tried once before, so I knew that would be good, but the buttercream was new to me, so I was really eager to try it out. It's a Swiss Meringue buttercream, made with brown sugar and then finished off with a large amount of homemade caramel sauce thrown right into the frosting. Yum! I really seem to be on a caramel binge here recently, and that does happen to me from time to time (caramel and malt seem to be most popular with me!). I've also had toffee bars on the mind, using the caramel recipe I made for the Banoffee Pie in my very first post. Those might be making an appearance on here in the near future! Though I'm going to try to not bake anything from now until Valentine's Day, just to be good, unless it's for breakfast. I don't think I ever realized how much sweets I made until I actually started documenting them on this blog, ha ha! Anyways, on to the recipes!

Brown Sugar Cupcakes (Originally under the name Salted Caramel Cupcakes from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski)
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar (I used light)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup whole milk (I used 2%, and that's fine)

Directions

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, using an electric mixture on medium-high speed, beat the sugars and butter until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, beating on low speed just until combined; scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
3. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cupcake liners, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to wire rack and cool completely, about 1 hour.

After you put the cupcakes in the oven, immediately begin working on the caramel sauce.

Caramel Sauce (doubled from Debby Maugans Nakos' Small-Batch Baking)
Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. Combine the sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and cook, swirling the saucepan frequently, until the sugar syrup is golden amber in color, about 7 to 9 minutes.
2. Remove the pan from heat and gradually add cream, stirring slowly and carefully - the caramel will sputter when the liquid is added. The sugar will seize and harden. Return the pan to the heat and continue cooking until the sugar melts again, about 2 minutes. Pour into a bowl and cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. (Your caramel sauce may seem rather liquidy at first, but will thicken upon cooling.)
   

Brown Sugar Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 3 large egg whites
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• caramel sauce, to taste

Directions

1. Place egg whites, brown sugar, and salt in a large heatproof bowl and fit the bowl over a large pan of simmering water (double boiler style). Whisk the egg mixture constantly until the mixture feels hot to the touch and no longer grainy when rubbed between your fingers, about 5 minutes (and about 160 degrees F on a candy thermometer).
2. Put the egg mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on high until the mixture is light and fluffy and hold stiff peaks. Continue beating until the whipped egg whites come to room temperature. (Feel the bowl for this...if it no longer feels warm at all, then it's good to go.)
3. Switch to the paddle attachment, and with the mixer on low, add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time, waiting a couple of seconds before adding the next tablespoon. Increase the speed to high and beat until the mixture is thick and creamy, 6 to 10 minutes. The mixture may appear to be curdled during this time...don't freak out, just keep beating and it will come back together! (Some people also may experience the buttercream seeming very liquidy...again, just keep beating and it will thicken up!)
4. Once the mixture is thick and smooth, add the cooled caramel sauce a little bit at a time, to taste. You will not likely end up using all of the caramel sauce. Start out adding about 1/4 cup, and increase the amount to your liking.
   

To Assemble

1. Frost the cupcakes with your favorite decorating tip or knife/spatula.
2. Drizzle the cupcakes with any of the remaining caramel sauce, if you wish. Enjoy!

Yellow Cupcakes with French Silk Frosting

Here on the east coast we're currently getting SLAMMED with snow! And when I say slammed, I mean it! The numbers they've been predicting on the news has grown and grown, and it currently stands at 20-30 in, and I certainly believe them! A small tree in my front yard is currently totally weighted down with snow and my little Volkswagen Beetle is practically covered, ha ha! Anyways, I actually made these cupcakes two nights ago, but didn't get around to blogging them since I still had to blog about the light CC cookies, and didn't feel like typing up a whole nother post, but here I am now, and trust me, this recipe is absolutely delicious and one of my favorites!

What makes this recipe so delicious and addicting is certainly thanks to the vanilla butter & nut extract that McCormick makes! I discovered the cupcake recipe and the info about the extract on How To Eat a Cupcake. She had said that the extract was practically like yellow cake mix in a bottle! Yum! Even though I fully believe in baking from scratch, I do have a soft spot for the flavor of boxed cake mixes, being as that's what I grew up with. The extract really makes the cake, and while you could substitute with vanilla, it just won't be the same, so I suggest searching your store for this wonderful extract. Yes, it is imitation, but with all the processed foods we eat now anyway, I assume a tiny bit of extract in a cake recipe won't do much more harm. There were two bottles in just one store in my town and as soon as I made this recipe, I went back and bought the other bottle just in case they ran out and didn't restock!Also, the French Silk frosting is wonderful as well! French Silk refers to the light chocolate flavor like you get in a French Silk pie. It's an American buttercream (powdered sugar, butter, milk, flavoring), which usually I don't like too much because it's sickeningly sweet, but this recipe is actually great and not too sweet thanks to the unsweetened chocolate that you melt down and put into the recipe. It has a really great flavor and nice amount of sweetness. Now I've talked too long...on to the recipe!

(You could use better quality chocolate if you wish...but regular old Baker's chocolate works fine for me)

Yellow Cupcakes (Originally called Supermarket Yellow Cake for Strawberry Shortcake and adapted from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman)
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar, finely pulverized (I actually didn't do this, and my cupcakes were still great. If you want to follow it though, just whir the sugar in a food processor for 1-2 minutes or you can use caster/superfine sugar, which has already been pulverized)
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla butter & nut extract (The original called for vanilla...but use vanilla butter & nut, I promise it's delicious!)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm milk (This last time, I accidentally let my milk get hot, but used it anyway...seemed like the cupcakes came out even moister!)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard cupcake tin with 12 paper liners.
2. In a mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla butter & nut extract and mix well.
3. Add flour mixture alternately with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until flour and milk are fully incorporated.
4. Pour batter evenly into prepared liners. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

French Silk Frosting (From allrecipes.com)
Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) butter, softened (I always use salted for American buttercreams. If you only have unsalted, add a pinch of salt)
  
• 1 (1 ounce) square unsweetened chocolate, melted
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon milk
  

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, blend confectioners' sugar, butter, melted chocolate, and vanilla on low speed. Increase speed to high. Gradually add milk; beat until smooth and fluffy.

Extreme Vanilla Cupcakes

Even though I had a major disappointment before I made these, the resulting cupcake was awesome and definitely made me brighten up! I first stumbled upon the recipe on a blog called justJENN recipes, under the name "VERY Vanilla Cupcakes," but I made a few changes from the recipe that warranted the name "Extreme!" These cupcakes are chock-full of vanilla in three forms: extract, vanilla milk, and, in with my change, vanilla bean. In Jenn's original recipe, she used vanilla sea salt, but since I didn't have any, I decided to substitute vanilla beans instead.

Anyways, the disappointment had to do with the mini little nut & party cups I was planning on making these in. I've seen them used in multiple blogs and being as I've never made mini cupcakes, the prospect sounded incredibly fun! I found Wilton nut & party cups at Michael's and was excited as I opened the package. I thought they'd be great, especially for someone like me since they stand up by themselves and don't require a mini cupcake tin, something that I don't have. But lo and behold, when I opened the package, they had a wax coating on the inside!! ARGH! Those can't go in the oven! I was so upset, particularly so because the packaging didn't even mention that they had a wax coating and were unsafe for baking. So I had to drag out the ol' regular-sized cupcake tin and paper liners. Definitely not as exciting.

But like I said, the resulting cupcake was still great, so all was good. By the way, please excuse my crazy piping on the cupcake. This is really the first time I've ever seriously tried piping anything, so I know it looks a little ridiculous, ha ha! I just tried a regular swirl at first, but I didn't quite get the edges, so I went back and did some crazy shell-like border around the edges. Feel free to giggle, as I certainly did! But I had a lot of fun trying to pipe and I look forward to practicing and getting better!

Extreme Vanilla Cupcakes (Adapted from justJENN recipes)
I halved the recipe twice and only got 4 cupcakes, so it's safe to say that this full recipe will yield about 16 cupcakes.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups cake flour (Again, I always use the all-purpose and cornstarch trick. See post below for how-to.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla sea salt (I just scraped in some vanilla beans and used regular salt)
• 1 cup vanilla milk (Jenn used Horizon Organic Vanilla Milk. I didn't have any, so just put a couple drops of vanilla into regular old 2%)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake tin with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and sea salt (or whatever salt you're using). Set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time until incorporated and then vanilla (and vanilla bean seeds, if using).
4. Add milk, alternating with the dry ingredients until combined, starting and ending with the dry ingredients.
5. Spoon batter into prepared liners and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Jenn said in her post that she just frosted with a simple vanilla buttercream. Since I wanted to keep with the amped up vanilla theme, I frosted with a vanilla bean buttercream, yum!

Vanilla Bean Buttercream (adapted from Oprah.com...yes, Oprah.)
(This recipe is enough to frost 24 cupcakes, so it'll be more than you need. Feel free to reduce the ingredients slightly.)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup milk
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar
• (I also added in a little shot of vanilla extract! Yay, vanilla!)

Directions

1. Cream the butter in a medium-sized bowl (or stand mixer) until very smooth. Add vanilla bean seeds and mix until they are evenly distributed.
2. Add salt and milk (and vanilla extract, if using) and stir until combined (it probably won't come together very well being as it's fat and a liquid, but don't worry about it. It'll all come together once you add the sugar.)
3. Sift the confectioners' sugar over the butter mixture and beat until perfectly smooth. If too loose, add some more confectioners' sugar. If too stiff, add some more milk.

By the way, as I was editing and adding text to my photo, I found this effect on Picnik:Ha ha!! Vanilla cupcake is all powerful! x)