Mini Double Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

Cute, cute, cute! I just love mini things! Especially those that taste good. These cupcakes are a perfect little bite of vanilla.  I have had a real cupcake deficit in my home the past few months.  I used to make cupcakes regularly and take them to the office for co-workers birthdays.  Now that I have no office to go to, I don't regularly have an excuse to make cupcakes.  It's pretty sad really.

This craving for cupcakes just hit me.  I think I've mentioned that my favorite cupcake is vanilla cake with vanilla frosting.  Some may say that's boring, but I say it's a classic.  This recipe is anything but boring.  I got this recipe from Crazy for Crust, one of my daily reads, especially for sweet treats.  Everyone needs a basic vanilla cupcake recipe. This might just be your new favorite.

The original recipe makes about 12 standard sized cupcakes.  At the last minute I decided to make a mini version.  I rarely make mini cupcakes, but I think I'll be doing it more often.  It's a little dangerous though, mini cupcake are very easy to just pop right in your mouth. You don't think much about eating one, it's so tiny!  Might as well eat another, the first one didn't really count anyway.  Now I've lost count of how many I ate....oops.

Mini Double Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

from Crazy for Crust

For the cake:

1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 Tablespoon vanilla bean paste

3/4 cup buttermilk *make your own by combining 3/4 cup milk and 1 teaspoon white vinegar and allow to sit for at least 5 minutes

For the frosting:

1 stick butter, softened to room temperature

3 cups powdered sugar

1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

1-2 Tablespoons milk or heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 and line mini cupcake tin with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, or bowl of your stand mixer, beat together melted butter and sugar, about 30 seconds, until thick and yellow

Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  Beat in vanilla bean paste.

Add the dry ingredients and buttermilk alternately, starting and ending with the dry ingredients.  Beat until just combined, scraping the sides as needed, careful not to overmix.

I used a small cookie scoop to fill each mini muffin tin.  Bake for 8-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting: Again using your stand or hand mixer, beat butter for 2-3 minutes, until smooth and creamy.  Add powdered sugar one cup at a time until it is completely added. Beat in vanilla bean paste and one Tablespoon milk, add the other tablespoon if needed.

*I got about 40 mini cupcakes out of this recipe.  This made enough frosting for about 35 of them.  The cupcakes are plenty sweet and have enough vanilla flavor even without frosting..perfect for my little taste-tester.

My favorite way to eat these cupcakes; take off the bottom, place it on top of the frosting, and you have a perfect little cupcake sandwich. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Bun in the oven cupcakes

I love babies.....

I love presents......

Babies + Presents = Baby shower = fun.

Who knew I was good at math?!

My sweet co-workers, Izzy and Marta, are both having babies over the next few months. One boy and one girl! Perfect!

We had a joint shower for them, hosted at the home of one of our doctors. My job was to take care of dessert. I decided to make cupcakes, but I wanted to do something a little different than regular cupcakes. During one of my Greenlake runs (where I do my best thinking) I decided to bake cupcakes and fill them with frosting. Each cupcake would have a sweet surprise, just like our moms-to-be.

Bun in the oven cupcakes were born!

Both girls said they like the classic cupcake combinations, chocolate and vanilla.

When I was at the Home cake store, I found some great cupcake accessories! Papers, sanding sugars in pink and blue, and some adorable little trinket toppers..in pink and blue of course.

For the vanilla cupcakes, I decided to try a recipe I have looked at several times:
Billy's vanilla cupcakes, featured on Martha Stewart. I followed the recipe, but made one small change...I had to add my beloved vanilla bean paste...just one little tablespoon.

While the cupcakes were baking I whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting (also from Mr. Billy) I have made this buttercream so many times and I love it. Just four little ingredients and you'll be licking the bowl clean!

Once the cupcakes had cooled, I began my filling. I used a small knife and cut out a little circle from the middle of each cupcake

They also have fancy little gadgets that you can buy that will do this for you. I found the knife method very easy. Some people may replace the cake chunk over the filling. I just discarded it...okay, I ate a lot of it.

I filled a pastry bag with my delicious buttercream frosting. Do you know the easiest way to fill a pastry bag?

That's right, put your pasty bag in a glass to fill it up. That way you can use two hands! Thanks to BFF Kory for teaching me this! Use a regular round cake tip with your pastry bag. No pastry bags? Just use a ziploc bag with a hole cut in one of the corners.

Each little cupcake was filled to the top with yummy buttercream..

Cover the cake with additional buttercream and then decorate!

Next I had to make my chocolate cupcakes. I used a classic recipe from Hershey's with just a few adjustments:

Their recipe calls for 1 cup milk. I used 1 cup buttermilk.

Hershey's says 1 cup boiling water. Alex says 1/2 cup boiling water, 1/2 cup freshly brewed coffee!

The boiling water is added last and it will make your cake batter very runny. This also makes your cake batter a little messy when filling your cupcake papers, just FYI.

The coffee made the chocolate cake look very dark, almost black.

When it came time to fill my chocolate cupcakes I had an epiphany!!!

Frosting is more dense than cake. Therefore, I don't necessarily need to make room for the frosting inside the cake....it will create it's own room! Yay!

(math and science, all in one baking post)

No need to spend time cutting the middle from each cake

I grabbed my star cake decorating tip and stuck it right in the middle of the cupcake and filled it up until the star tip was pushed back out. So easy!

One thing I didn't consider....no cake innards for me to eat!

That's okay.

Less waste and ...

Less waist.

I was really happy with these little cakes and had a lot of fun decorating them!

Vanilla cupcakes
adapted from Billy's vanilla vanilla cupcakes

* I got about 30 cupcakes out of this batter*

• 1 3/4 cups cake flour
• 1 1/4 cups AP flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter, cut into cubes
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• my addition, 1 Tbsp vanilla bean paste

Preheat oven to 325 and prepare your baking pans.

In a large bowl (use your stand mixer if you have one) whisk together flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add your butter, mix until it is slightly coated with flour.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla. (and vanilla bean paste if you are adding it)

Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture in 3 parts, scraping bowl after each addition. Mix until completely combined.

If making cupcakes, fill them about 2/3 full. They will bake up nice and fluffy. I have a feeling this would make a delicious layer cake. Bake for 15-20 mins. Transfer to a rack to cool and then have fun frosting!

I think this is the best vanilla cupcake I have ever made! The vanilla flavor was so intense and delicious. I will definitely make these again. The buttercream frosting is a great compliment!

Chocolate cupcakes
adapted from Hershey's

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 3/4 cups cocoa
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk ( I used buttermilk)
• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup boiling water ( I used 1/2 cup coffee, 1/2 cup boiling water)

Heat oven to 350 and prepare your baking pans.

In the bowl of your mixer stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda, and salt.

Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Lastly, stir in you boiling water (and/or coffee)

Bake for 20-25 minutes

Buttercream frosting

• 1 cup softened butter
• 6 cups powdered sugar ( you can use up to 8 cups)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract ( or use vanilla bean paste!)

In the bowl of your mixer, cream butter until smooth. Carefully add your powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Mix until fluffy and delicious!

*With this frosting you'll definitely have enough for 30 cupcakes. I had to double it to frost and stuff all my cupcakes....okay, and I ate some, right from the bowl*

The shower was so fun and these moms-to-be received some very special gifts. It was very fun celebrating them and I can't wait to meet their own little cupcakes. Love you both!

Wedding shower cake.

We've had some exciting things happen to the women in my book club in recent months.

I was married in February, Izzy is expecting a little baby boy in June, and Darcy is our bride-to-be for June! For our recent meeting, we decided to surprise the future Mrs. Webb with a little bridal shower. Right away I knew I wanted to make a white cake to resemble a little wedding cake. I bought a 6 inch and 4 inch cake pan so I could make a layer cake.

Did I mention I LOVE wedding cake? Like, I'll eat two pieces and I don't care who knows about it. Don't judge me..just share your cake with me.

I figured this little cake would be perfect for our impromptu shower.

A real piece of cake....

When researching recipes, I decided I wanted to find a recipe that called for this:

Yes, cake flour. I've never used it before and I love new baking "gadgets"

The flour was very fine and reminded me of powdered sugar.

Another exciting new thing.....

Vanilla Bean Paste.

I've read about this online and really wanted to try it. It's a substitution for an actual vanilla bean pod. It still adds the little vanilla bean flecks to your baking.

Yep, right there mixed with butter!  Vanilla bean pods add a lot of flavor to baking. However, they can be quite expensive. You only need about a tablespoon of vanilla bean paste to equal one vanilla bean pod. You can find this at specialty cooking stores ( I got mine at Williams Sonoma), or of course, everyone's best friend, the Internet. When you pour it in your batter, it smells so delicious and fragrant. I'm excited I bought it and can't wait to use it again. I'm thinking vanilla bean macarons.......

I've baked many things, but never a white cake from scratch. I don't know that I'll do it again.

Chocolate? yes.

Maybe even try yellow, but this white cake, I should have made from a box!

The recipe was easy to follow. The cakes definitely didn't rise as much as I would hope. I like a nice fluffy cake, this was a flat dense cake. I used my usual buttercream, knowing that the frosting was one thing I could do right.

Cake recipe

3 cups cake flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 vanilla bean pod, or use vanilla bean paste!

1 cup unsalted, softened buter 2 cups sugar

5 large eggs 1 1/4

cups butter

milk,

1 extra tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 and prepare your baking pans.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set to the side. Using a mixer, combine butter and vanilla bean. Beat until the butter is light and creamy, about 3 minutes. Scrape the bow and beat for another minute.

Add the sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Scrape the bowl before you begin adding more sugar. Add the eggs one at a time. Add vanilla extract to buttermilk. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk. Mix until just incorporated. Pour cake batter into pans and drop on the counter a few times to release any air bubbles.

Baking time may vary on your pans. Since I used smaller pans, my cake baked in around 30 minutes. If you use a more traditional 8 or 9 inch pan, it will most likely bake for 45 minutes.

Buttercream icing

1 cup softened, unsalted butter

6 to 8 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

In your mixer cream butter until smooth. with your mixer on low add 6 cups sugar, milk, and vanilla (I've never needed the full 8 cups) Mix until light and fluffy...like beaters to taste test.

For my small cake this was more than enough frosting. Using a big spoon, eat the rest of the icing straight from the bowl Save the rest of the icing for your next cake project.


Unfortunately, while driving this cake to our bookclub meeting, my frosting didn't set, so the top layer of my cake was sliding everywhere! On top of that, traffic was bad and I was forced to yell, scream, and cuss the whole way over there! It didn't look nearly as pretty when I arrived! Thank goodness for cameras....

I only wish the bride to be could have seen it like this! Instead of with the frosting sliding into the flowers! The cake had an interesting flavor. It wasn't overly sweet. It was very dense, and you could tell it had several eggs. It was okay, but not my favorite.

I hope Darcy enjoyed it. I haven't given up on making cakes, but this cake.....it didn't taste as good as it looked! It's frustrating when you are putting a lot of effort into something and it just doesn't turn out like you hoped. Don't worry...I still ate a big slice. Plus I brought cookies as a back-up....recipe coming soon!

Congrats Darcy!