Vanilla Cupcakes
Last week was my grandma’s birthday. She loves classic flavors in her desserts, so I decided to make her these vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting…topped with sprinkles, of course! I went with a reverse creaming method for these bad boys. By blending the butter with the dry ingredients, you coat the flour with fat, inhibiting gluten. This equals a deliciously moist and tender cake.
Ingredients
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup + 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. table salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. neutral oil
1/2 cup whole milk, room temp.
2 large eggs, room temp.
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
In a mixing bowl, blend together the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.
Slice the butter into tablespoons, then place them in the bowl with the dry ingredients. Blend together at first on low speed so the dry ingredients don’t spill out. Then, when the dry ingredients start to meld together with the butter, turn the speed up to medium. What you will end up with is a dough that resembles shortbread.
Add the vanilla extract, oil, and milk, and blend with the dry ingredients on medium speed until combined.
With the mixer turned down to low speed, add the eggs, one at a time. Turn the mixer speed back up to medium and blend until there are no streaks of flour left in the bowl.
Pour the batter into a lined muffin pan, filling each liner 2/3 of the way up.
Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Leave cupcakes to cool for 5 to 10 minutes in the pan, then remove the cupcakes from the pan and place them on a cooling rack to continue cooling for an additional 10 minutes.
Frost with my chocolate buttercream frosting, vanilla buttercream frosting, or strawberry cream cheese frosting.
Makes 12 cupcakes.
Enjoy!
My grandma's cat, Onyx, posing with the birthday present that my dad got for her - a stuffed Onyx look-a-like! We found this cutie in the Halloween section at the At Home store. Anyone else obsessed with this place? Anyway, my dad and I just about died when we saw this cat because it's basically Onyx's twin. So we knew we had to get it. And my grandma could not believe her eyes when she unwrapped this little guy. We're a cat loving family around here, if you couldn't already tell.
