Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

By now you’re all familiar with baby boy’s love for cookies but another thing he seems to be obsessed with is vanilla. Ever since he was a little baby all he ever wanted was vanilla, vanilla ice cream, vanilla cake, vanilla frosting and so on; for this I blame the husband who is equally (and boringly) vanilla crazy with occasional bouts of strawberry.

Thus the go to cupcakes in our home are more often than not vanilla and if baby boy is around it usually gets topped with a buttercream frosting, vanilla of course.  Unlike baby boy, I’m not a big fan of the sugary sweet buttercream though I have to say I quite enjoy it on cupcakes. Unlike a layered cake, in a cupcake you can easily control the amount of frosting you want to add whether it’s a tiny bit or a whole lot, I settled for somewhere in between. This cupcake recipe courtesy Amy Sedaris is one I’ve been making for years and I absolutely love it for two solid reasons; one it’s the most straight forward cupcake recipe I know of and two of course because it has great flavour and texture. In addition to the vanilla extract I also added vanilla bean seeds to the cupcakes as well as the frosting to make it extra vanilla-y; also I have to admit I love how pretty the vanilla seeds look especially in the frosting; the pure white buttercream speckled with the tiny little vanilla seeds.  Vanilla beans aren’t always easily available nor are they cheap so if you can’t find any, leave it out and I promise you’ll still have some amazing vanilla cupcakes.

In other news, I’m loving being back home even though it’s hot and humid and crazy as always but who cares when my only aim here is to eat, eat and eat some more till I can barely sit or breathe. Also Baby boy goes back to school this weekend so I’m prepping for another round of heartbreak though it is a tiny bit of consolation to see him happy and excited to go back to school, but only a tiny bit. Lots to do before the weekend so I’m off, leaving you with these simple and beautiful very vanilla cupcakes. This recipe makes a big batch of 24 cupcakes, though you can easily halve it.

Ingredients

For Cupcakes (makes 24)

• All purpose flour/maida- 2 ½ cups
• Unsalted butter(softened)- 150 grams
• Sugar- 1 ½ cups
• Eggs- 2
• Baking powder- 2 ½ tsp
• Salt- ¼ tsp
• Vanilla extract- 2 tsp
• Milk- 1 ¼ cups
• Vanilla bean- 1 (optional)

Frosting

• Unsalted butter(softened)- 200 grams
• Powdered sugar- 2-3 cups
• Vanilla extract- 2 tsp
• Salt- 1/4 tsp
• Vanilla bean- 1-2 (optional)
• Milk- 2-3 tsp (more if required)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 175 C. Line a 12 cup, cupcake tray with cupcake liners, keep aside. In a bowl, add flour, salt and baking powder, mix and keep aside. Scrape the vanilla bean to remove seeds, keep aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large bowl if using a hand mixer

• Add butter and beat till smooth,
• Add sugar and beat well
• Add eggs and and vanilla bean seeds, if using; beat to combine
• Add the flour mixture, milk and vanilla and mix till combined

3. Pour batter into cupcake moulds till 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until done. It’s done when a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean.
4. For the frosting- Place butter in a large bowl, beat until smooth and fluffy; add powdered sugar one cup at a time and beat until smooth. Add the vanilla extract, salt and vanilla bean seeds, if using, and again beat well till nice and smooth and fluffy. Add milk to adjust the consistency of the frosting, if it’s too loose add more sugar and if it’s too stiff, add milk to thin it out. Frost cupcakes as desired.

Notes

*Room temperature butter, eggs and milk will give best results, though I always forget to take the milk out of the fridge.

*If using salted butter, omit the additional salt.

*You can halve the recipe to get 12 cupcakes.

*Adjust the consistency of frosting by adding more powdered sugar to make it stiffer and adding milk to loosen it up.