Microwave Yellow Mug Cake

It's been quite a while since I last posted, hasn't it? I apologize for that. I actually haven't been doing a lot of baking here recently, and when I have, they've been things I've already blogged about (like applesauce quick bread and Levain copycats...yum!). But now here I am with a new recipe. This one is as quick and easy as it gets when it comes to making sweets. I'm sure most of you have heard of the microwave mug cake by now. The chocolate one seems to be the most common one made. I've made it before a couple of times myself. But in all honesty, I was never too impressed with it. Sure, it was quick and easy to make, however, the texture was awfully rubbery and dense and the flavor just couldn't make up for it. I often ended up drowning it in a chocolate glaze just to make it edible. It wasn't horrible, but it was far from great. Just recently I got to thinking about it again and then thought, 'What about a yellow cake instead?' But could it end up being any better? I certainly think so!
The truth of the matter is, a cake made in the microwave will never be better than one made in the oven. EVER. However, this one is actually pretty good for being made in a microwave. After thinking about a yellow microwave mug cake, a quick search led me to this recipe, and it was the one I went with. The texture still wasn't perfect, however, I thought it was better. It produces a very dense slightly spongy cake that can only be expected since it's made in the microwave. However, the flavor was great, and paired with my go-to chocolate buttercream, it definitely satisfied my sweet tooth! Don't skimp on the flavoring is my advice. I used both vanilla extract and vanilla butter & nut flavoring (which is why my cake is extra yellow, since the flavoring contains yellow food coloring in it). It says just a dash in the recipe, but definitely go with at least a 1/2 teaspoon if you're using vanilla. Or if you're using a stronger flavored extract, adjust accordingly, but as I said, don't skimp! I'm looking forward to trying coconut and almond extracts in the future! Oh, and of course, be sure to use a really large mug. Here's the one I used compared to a normal sized mug.

Microwave Yellow Mug Cake (adapted from momoften's recipe on grouprecipes.com)
Makes one miniature cake that's actually big enough to share with 1 or 2 other people...however, if you want it all for yourself, I won't tell. ;)

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
• dash salt
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons milk or water
  
• 3 tablespoons oil
• dash vanilla extract (or whatever flavoring you like)

Directions

1. In a small bowl, place the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and mix until combined.
2. In another small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk or water, oil, and extract. Pour into the dry ingredients and whisk until combined.

3. Spray a small amount of nonstick cooking spray into your mug and pour the cake batter in. (You can actually do this whole process in the mug if you don't want to dirty extra dishes. Just don't spray any cooking spray in it, then proceed to mix your dry and wet ingredients right in the mug.) Microwave for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. (I only cooked mine for 2 1/2...I think the less you cook it, the less spongy it will be...just don't undercook.) Don't be alarmed if the cake at some point rises above the top of the mug. It will sink back down when you turn the microwave off.

4. Remove from the mug and enjoy warm or allow it to cool and frost with your favorite frosting. (I used my go-to chocolate buttercream that I also used to frost almond cupcakes.)
   

Daring Bakers July 2010: Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake

In my infinite knowledge (har har), I accidentally almost posted this yesterday! That wouldn't have been good, ha ha. I think I was just a bit frazzled. A huge storm came through my area on Sunday and knocked out my power, and my power didn't come back on until yesterday, 23 hours later! It was a rough bit, and I'm very glad that I made this ice cream cake a couple weeks ago, otherwise it most likely would have melted. Anyways, now that my confusion has been cleared up and I am indeed posting on the correct day, it's time to tell you about this month's Daring Bakers challenge. This is only my third DB challenge, but it was probably one that I was most excited for. I was a little worried at first, because I don't have an ice cream maker (though really want one), but I read that the poster of the recipe had made this recipe without one, so I was quite relieved. Like last time, all of the parts were very easy to put together, but this time, luckily nothing went astray!
This was the first time I've ever made a rolled cake. I was definitely a bit nervous. I still couldn't see how I could roll the cake without it breaking in two. But when the cakes came out of the oven, I certainly saw how! They were very spongy and pliable, and rolled up just fine. However, when they were cooled and I unrolled them to spread them with cream, surely enough, they were quite raggedy and slightly coming apart. Aha, but I said nothing really went astray, right? That's right. When I rolled the cakes back up with the cream, they certainly didn't look very pretty, but when I sliced into them and lined the bowl with them, they looked perfectly fine and nice (well, they could have been nicer, but not too bad for a first-timer). Woohoo! After that, everything went pretty quick and easy. Well, I say quick, but I mean putting them together. There was a lot of down time while making this, though. I assume if you had an ice cream maker, it would probably go a heck of a lot faster for you. Because I didn't have one, I used a method where I just put the ice cream bases in the freezer and as it froze, I took it out every once and a while and beat it with a wooden spoon. Though I have to admit I got a little slack...the ice cream took several hours to freeze totally! But I was happy to do it. Oh, and the hot fudge sauce? Probably the easiest, and very yummy!
So how did it taste? Very, very good! This is probably the most satisfied I've been with a DB challenge so far. In terms of taste, I think maybe the croquembouche was my favorite by just a slight hair, but the Swiss roll ice cream cake was delicious and much better looking than my croquembouche, so it wins for now. My only complaint would be that my favorite part of the cake was the one thing that there seemed to be the least amount of: the chocolate ice cream. Of course, Sunita, the daring baker who provided the challenge, did give us free reign on ice cream flavors, so I guess I'm to blame for that one. So I encourage you to give this recipe a try and don't be afraid to change up some of the flavors. There is lots of downtime, but it's certainly worth it in the end!

Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake (inspired by the Swiss roll ice cream cake from Taste of Home; recipes developed by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food)
Makes 1 large cake

For the swiss rolls:

• 6 medium sized eggs
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 5 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• extra caster sugar or powdered sugar for rolling
• oil for brushing the pans

For the cream filling:

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 vanilla bean, cut into small pieces (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
• 5 tablespoons caster sugar

Directions

1. For the cake: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Brush two 9x11 inch baking pans with a little oil and line with greaseproof baking paper (okay, I looked and looked for 9x11 inch pans, but I'm just not sure if they sell them in the US, so I baked mine in an 8x11, which was the closest I could find). If you have just one pan, bake one cake and then let the pan cool completely before using it for the next cake.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat till very thick; when the beaters are lifted, it should leave a trail on the surface for at least 10 seconds.

3. Add the flour mixture, in three batches and fold in gently with a spatula. Fold in the water.

4. Divide the mixture among the two baking pans and spread it out evenly, into the corners of the pans. Place a pan in the center of the preheated oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or till the center is springy to the touch.

5. Spread a kitchen towel on the counter and sprinkle a little caster sugar (or powdered sugar) over it. Turn the cake on to the towel and peel away the baking paper. Trim any crisp edges. Starting from one of the shorter sides, start to make a roll with the towel going inside. Cool the wrapped roll on a rack, seam side down. Repeat for the next cake as well.

6. For the cream filling: Grind together the vanilla pieces and sugar in a food processer till nicely mixed together. If you are using vanilla extract, just grind the sugar on its own and then add the sugar and extract to the cream.

7. In a large bowl, add the cream and vanilla-sugar mixture and beat till very thick. Divide the cream mixture between the completely cooled cakes.

8. Open the rolls and spread the cream mixture, making sure it does not go right to the edges (a border of ½ an inch should be fine). Roll the cakes up again, this time without the towel. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge till needed, seam side down.

For the vanilla ice cream:

• 2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 vanilla bean, cut into piece or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

Directions

1. Grind together the sugar and vanilla in a food processor. In a mixing bowl, add the cream and vanilla sugar mixture and whisk lightly till everything is mixed together. If you are using the vanilla extract, grind the sugar on its own and then and the sugar along with the vanilla extract to the cream.
2. Pour into a freezer friendly container and freeze till firm around the edges. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

For the hot fudge sauce:

• 1 cup caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch and water.
2. Place the pan over heat, and stir constantly, till it begins to thicken and is smooth (for about 2 minutes).
3. Remove from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Keep aside to cool.

For the chocolate ice cream:

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder

Directions

1. Grind together the sugar and the cocoa powder in a food processor.
2. In a saucepan, add all the ingredients and whisk lightly. Place the pan over heat and keep stirring till it begins to bubble around the edges.

3. Remove from heat and cool completely before transferring to a freezer friendly container till firm around the edges. If you are using an ice cream maker, churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instruction, after the mixture has cooled completely.

4. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

Assembly:

1. Cut the Swiss rolls into about 20 equal slices (approximately 1 inch each).
2. Cover the bottom and sides of the bowl in which you are going to set the dessert with cling film/plastic wrap. (I used my 4.5 quart Kitchen Aid bowl...it's about 8 1/2 inches in diameter and 6 1/2 inches deep.)
   
3. Arrange two slices at the bottom of the pan, with their seam sides facing each other. Arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl, with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes).

4. Soften the vanilla ice cream. Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm (at least 1 hour).
5. Add the fudge sauce over the vanilla ice cream, cover and freeze till firm (at least an hour).
6. Soften the chocolate ice cream and spread it over the fudge sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set .
7. Remove the plastic cover, and place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily.
8. Keep the cake out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes before slicing, depending on how hot your region is. Slice with a sharp knife, dipped in hot water.

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.-

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!

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.

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.

Vanilla Spice Crumb Cakes

It's steady snowing away outside today, so it's definitely a good day to curl up with a hot beverage and a good book or movie with these DELICIOUS muffins! This is another recipe from the book Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos, and boy, is it a good one! They're called crumb cakes because they're similar to crumb or coffee cakes, but you bake them up as muffins. I thought they'd be good as I put the batter into the muffin liners as I got a little lick of the batter, but these muffins greatly exceeded my expectations!

The flavor of them is absolutely delicious, and in my opinion, a perfect balance of sugar and spice. The original recipe used nutmeg, but I used cinnamon since I didn't have any and I definitely recommend using cinnamon whether you have nutmeg or not! The vanilla bean gave them a nice vanilla flavor, and of course, those lovely looking vanilla seeds spread throughout. And the texture was nice and soft and fluffy. I think these might have just become one of my favorite muffins! I was a little skeptical because the recipe only used an egg white, and I never really see that too often in recipes (usually when a recipe only uses part of an egg, it uses the yolk), but they were so delicious, and hey, the egg yolk is the one part of the egg that contains fat and cholesterol, so I'm not complaining that the recipe didn't include it! Especially being as I ate 3 of the 4 muffins, 2 of them in quick succession! Ack! Maybe them being so delicious isn't such a good thing, ha ha. :)

Vanilla Spice Crumb Cakes (Adapted from Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos. No copyright infringement intended)
The recipe stated it made 3 jumbo muffins, but I made regular muffins and got 4.

Ingredients

• 1 piece of vanilla bean (about 3 inches), or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I used cinnamon, and like I said, I really recommend it!)
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
  
• 1/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• White of 1 medium egg (I actually just used the white of an extra large egg, since that was what I had)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease only the bottoms of 3 jumbo muffin cups and set muffin pan aside. (I thought these directions were rather curious. I'm not sure what the purpose is, but I just used paper/foil liners and it was just fine. As I said, if you're using a regular muffin tin, you should get 4).
2. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise by slicing down one edge with the tip of a sharp knife. Open the bean and scrape the seeds into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add the granulated and brown sugars to the bowl and mix well with a fork. Add the flour, salt, and nutmeg (or cinnamon), and mix with a fork until well combined. Add the butter and mix with the fork, or with your fingertips, until the mixture is crumbly (I quickly found out that fingers definitely work best). Set aside 1/4 cup of the crumb mixture for the topping.
3. Place the buttermilk and baking soda in a small bowl. Whisk in the egg white until it is well blended. Pour the buttermilk mixture over the remaining dry ingredients and mix with a fork until just combined.
4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, dividing it evenly among them. Sprinkle the reserved crumb mixture evenly over the batter and press in lightly with your fingertips. Fill the empty muffin cups halfway with water to prevent them from scorching.
5. Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 15 minutes (She must have a magic oven or something. I baked regular-sized muffins and they weren't done until about 20 minutes).
6. Cool slightly in pans and then remove to wire racks. Serve warm or at room temperature. Cakes can be wrapped in foil and placed in a plastic freezer bag for up to a month or store any leftovers (which I doubt there will be) wrapped at room temperature for up to 2 days.

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)