Dessert: Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting (with a Patriotic Twist!)

Welcome back! So it’s been quite the interesting weekend for me, but I wanted to make sure to celebrate the first national holiday since the creation of this blog. Labor Day! I know, not the sexiest holiday, but it’s a day off. Yay!

So I decided to make some cupcakes. From scratch. Before this attempt, my cupcakes had always come from a mix, but after stumbling across this recipe, I knew I had to try.

Vanilla Cupcakes (adapted from My Baking Addiction)

Ingredients

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups of flour (I used all-purpose)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 1/4 cups of milk ( I used 2%)
• 1 stick of unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar

Directions

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake pan with liners.
• Sift flour and sugar and stir together with a wisk.
• Add baking powder and salt. Set bowl aside.
• In a separate bowl, beat butter until creamy. Slowly add sugar and mix.
• Slowly mix the butter mix into the flour mixture.
• Add milk and mix.
• Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each egg.
• Add vanilla and mix.
• Fill cupcake liners approximately 3/4 full.
• Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (also adapted from My Baking Addiction)

Ingredients

• 2 sticks of unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• 2 cups of confectioners’ sugar
• 5 tablespoons of heavy cream

Directions

• In a bowl, beat the butter until creamy.
• Slowly sift and mix in the confectioners’ sugar.
• Add vanilla and heavy cream and mix until fully combined.

So, by now (if you’re still reading) you’re probably asking, where’s that promised patriotic twist? Well, remember the cake balls? Check this out!

Yes, that is a red velvet cake ball inside of a white cupcake with blue vanilla buttercream frosting. Next time, I will make the red velvet cake more vivid, but after seeing the polka dot cake on Once Upon a Pedestal, I knew I wanted to try it, but I do not need to bake a whole cake. So, cupcakes!

I put the cake balls in the liners and poured vanilla batter around them.

When the cupcakes were done, the cake balls could be seen, but I was not worried since the frosting would cover them.

And, as awesome as that was, I only did one cupcake with blue frosting. All of the others looked like this. 

Final Verdict: Delicious (and not too difficult to do).