My 2012 Cupcake Craze

My most exciting 2012 New Year's resolution by far is my goal to make 25 different cupcake recipes and blog about each one this year. To start off this journey with a BANG I made two different cupcake recipes in two days. I'm full of cake. 

Cupcake recipe #1: 
Yellow Buttermilk Birthday Cupcakes (page 26)
Source: Martha Stewart's Cupcakes Cookbook

Ingredients:

• **3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup plus 2 TB butter, softened
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 5 large whole eggs plus 3 egg yolks
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Fluffy White Frosting (page 302):

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 pound (4 cups) powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium. Add whole eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add yolks, and beat until thoroughly combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each. Beat in vanilla.
3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely.

**I made a HUGE mistake and substituted regular flour for cake flour. DON'T DO THAT. It makes the cupcakes DRY and nasty nast. Instead, if you need to substitute, for every 1 cup of cake flour, substitute one cup of regular flour minus 2 TB mixed with 2 TB cornstarch. TRUST ME I TRIED IT. (But let's be honest, it's much easier to just bite the bullet and BUY CAKE FLOUR.)  

Frosting:

1. With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.
2. Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium-high. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth. If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 10 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.

So funny story, I made these cupcakes for my friend Daniel's 16th birthday, and frosted them all cute and even made a "16" out of pretzels on one of the cupcakes. So I was decorating like crazy and when I was done I left the house and forgot the cupcakes to bring to Daniel. When I got back from his party, I decided to eat one and I SPIT IT OUT because it was SO DRY AND TASTELESS. Wow. At least I got pictures of how cute they looked. You can look at the pictures and just imagine that they tasted moist and delicious. AND as I was typing out the ingredients list here, a day later, I realized that I HAD FORGOTTEN TO PUT THE BUTTERMILK ! No buttermilk in my yellow buttermilk cupcakes, and no cake flour. What a fail. Well, at least I learned something. I think :) 1 cupcake recipe down, 24 to go!