Birthday Vanilla Cupcakes

So I've been neglecting this blog for months. No, I’m not sick nor even giving birth. It occurred to me that I love to write down recipes on the kitchen paper towel, bake and frost, eat, share and make a couple jump of joy. And then I started to go for a hunt where the heck the paper towel is? Let‘s just suspect that I've simply threw them away together with those old newspapers I used for easy clean-up. Yep, it happened all the time.

This past week I decided to throw a small birthday party for a good friend of mine. As much as I wanted to celebrate her birthday, I selfishly also wanted to throw the party so I could make a cake or dozen of cupcakes. And eat! Isn't it fun sharing sweet treats with others?

The thing is, I had a quite hard time to decide what cake/cupcakes to make for her. She is one of those girls who find anything sweet is almost impossible to eat. I asked her (without letting her know about my plan) a couple weeks before, what type of cake she like the most—A simple moist chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. I went down to town a couple of times to get my favorite brand cocoa powder for my kitchen stock (I baked a lot you know) but oh how possibly can you get baking supplies in this festive month? Empty shelves! Sigh.

Nothing could stop me, though. I decided to go simple — vanilla cupcakes topped with my favorite fluffy cooked frosting. Since I knew that I would want to include something less sweet for her, I chose for the frosting which is so smooth, fluffy, less sweet but incredibly delicious. Turned out, she did eat the whole cupcake (she rarely did this) and my other friends exclaimed that the frosting is delicious and less sweet (where can you get this in the bakery?). I always opt this incredible frosting to frost my cakes and cupcakes and I think I've made this frosting really often since my first try. Perhaps, I will never look back!

Though the cake itself is not my go-to recipe so far, I baked these Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes for countless times before because I just love the texture and the simplicity of them. I hate to wait for my butter to soften, so why don't you just use oil instead? — It does, of course lends a moist, fluffy texture to the cake with nice crumbs. Enjoy!

Birthday Vanilla Cupcakes

Yield: 14-15 standard cupcakes, or two 6-inch round cakes

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

1 1/4 cups cake flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup oil (vegetable, canola or extra light olive oil)

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk plus 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar or lemon juice- add acid to the milk then set aside for 5 minutes before using)

For the frosting:

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup unsalted or regular butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-2 teaspoons strawberry extract, optional

Food coloring of choice, optional

Sanding sugar to decorate

Instructions

For the cupcakes:

1.       Preheat oven to 350F (180C).

2.      In a medium bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Stir together with whisk, and set aside.

3.      In the bowl of an electric mixer, add eggs and beat 10-20 seconds.  Add sugar and continue to beat on medium speed about 30 seconds.  Add vanilla and oil, beat.

4.      Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add about half of the flour mixture.  Add half of the milk, then the rest of the flour and the rest of the milk.  Beat until just combined.  Scrap down the side of the bowl.

5.      The batter will be thin.   Pour batter into a muffin pan prepared with paper liners.  Fill liners about 2/3 full.

6.      Bake cupcakes in pre-heated oven for 12-14 minutes.

7.      Cool in pan 1-2 minutes, then remove cupcakes from pan (carefully) and finish cooling on a wire rack.

For the frosting:

1.       Place milk into a medium saucepan. Add flour to the milk and whisk together.

2.      Cook over medium high heat, stirring continuously, until it becomes a very thick smooth paste. This can take 3-4 minutes.

3.      Remove from heat and let cool completely in the fridge.

4.      Beat the cooled flour/milk mixture with vanilla on high speed for 4 minutes. It will become a smooth paste again.

5.      In a separate bowl or mixing bowl combine the sugar and softened butter together with an electric mixer. Blend on high for 4 minutes.

6.      Strain the flour/milk mixture into the butter/sugar mixture and beat on high speed with an electric mixer for 3-4 minutes until super fluffy.

Assembly of the Birthday Vanilla Cupcakes:

1.       Take aside a small portion of the frosting and add coloring. Put into a small piping bag, set aside. Add strawberry extract to another and mix until fully combined.

2.      Using a small icing spatula, gently spread and swirl the strawberry frosting on top of each cupcake, smoothing out the tops.

3.      Put a generous amount of sanding sugar in a small bowl. Take a cupcake and carefully sprinkle the sides with sanding sugar, making sure to let the excess to fall back into the bowl.

4.      Cut off the tip of the filled piping bag and dot each cupcake with desired alphabets or shapes.

Notes

[Cupcake recipe adapted from Glorious Treats, Frosting recipe loosely adapted from Our Best Bites]

SweetyToothy Notes:

•  If you don’t have an access to cake flour, you can simply make your own by replacing 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour from 1 cup all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch/corn flour. Sift 2-3 times and use.
• The frosting is enough to frost 12 cupcakes with high swirls, but you would want to half the recipe if you wish to just spread them on like I did.
•  Keep frosted cupcakes at room temperature, covered (but not in an airtight container) up to 2 days. The frosting will not get crusted like some other buttercreams.

super-fluffy sponge cake {my birthday's sweet treats}

Hi there! I haven’t blog for the last whole month – kind of busy with school works actually. So this is going to be a long long post because I've been eager to talk mini cake, cupcakes and cake pops with full of photos! Wish you wouldn't mind :)

So last Friday marks my 22nd year of life. Twenty-two seems like one of those unusual ages that are neither here nor there. I'm not old (though some days I may feel it), but I'm not so young anymore either. People say this is the right time to get married. I have to say – Maybe? (Thanks for your pray, friends!). I can’t really remember when the last time I had my birthday cake either but of course, those classic vanilla cakes with pink icing topped with cute miniatures are absolutely my kind of cakes! I have to admit – I went crazy any time I saw cakes, pink and mini things. Till now, this is the first time I bake my own birthday cake. And I just couldn't resist them to be in pinks :)

Mini cakes are really fun to make; faster, cuter and the best thing is you can experiment any cake you want – be creative and have fun! Personally, I never love a lot of frosting on my cakes. I love to keep them simple, with minimal icing so it will not be overwhelming. Hey don’t be skeptical at the first sight, they might look a bit daunting to make but it’s just actually my go-to super-fluffy sponge cake. It took me the whole year to find a cake that is really simple to make yet so decadent and this is definitely a keeper to me. I made a batch of it and divided into three uneven portions. The first one was baked in mini tins with three batches, tinted with 3 pink hues, followed by three mini cupcakes and the rest was – A hah, for cake pops!

Speaking of those fun cake pops, it was my first attempt on them – coated with white chocolate mixed with strawberry flavor as well and the kiddos love them a lot. Well, no one was born with talent in making pops, so one or two of them fell off from the sticks but wait, please help yourself not to eat them straight away while on progress. They are so good! And if you have children, they will love to give you a hand :) Okay back to the topic, they are really easy to make but you need some techniques and practices to make smooth and beautiful cake pops. Apart from that, they are perfectly perfect for parties and door gifts. I will surely make more and more cakey pops after this! Just one thing to keep in mind, from my experience basically, you need a sturdier cake to make cake pops like vanilla cakes, chocolate cakes, red velvet cakes or any kind of your cake as long as they do not have very delicate crumbs. I found that sponge cakes are not suitable to make cake pops as they are too soft and their crumbs didn't hold up even after ‘gluing’ them with a bit of melted chocolate. So they are not for making cupcake bouquets as they will surely fall off as well. On the side note, they tend to taper after being baked and shrink oh my goodness.

Oh, let’s talk mini cake for one more time, I promise this is the last time, alright? I’m so much addicted to Pinterest lately. I can't believe I used to hate it – because they look messy over here and there. I have no idea when the first time I signed up for it. Or rather, I'm addicted to the foodporn I see on it. So I have to say thank you to Pinterest this time because it was where the inspiration for my birthday Pink Ombre Cake came from with some slight alternations on it. I don’t want to brag, really, but every single layer was perfect. I mixed in the cream cheese frosting with a couple drop of strawberry paste, spreading thinly in between – thumbs up! Every layer complimented each other brilliantly. I was happy of myself for planning it out and allowing my plans and imaginations to come to fruition successfully :) Since I’m a self-taught home baker, I don’t have basic things on baking cakes except learning from You-Tube and food blogs. This time I really have some improvement after struggling in crumb coating and frosting a cake, I think. But at least way better than this cake. Smoother, cleaner and well frosted. Truthfully, I just got my hand on an offset spatula (It was the one that did the ‘magic’.  Me gusta!).

And maybe you would want to wear something pink? :)

With two more birthdays of our family members coming up along next week, I think this month is the right time to gain some fats. Not really. I just love cupcakes.  And cake.  And, well, cookies are kinda nice too. That is why I choose April as my favorite month of all – we are going to celebrate the birthdays of three of us all together with lot of loves next week! Good luck and enjoy <3

method:

for the sponge cake

1. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, eggs and cake softener in a clean and dry mixing bowl.

2. Beat on high speed until thick and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

3. Lower the mixer speed and add milk, scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add vanilla extract and continue beating on high speed until very light and well-incorporated, about 3-5 minutes.
4. Fold in vegetable oil by hand with a rubber spatula until well-combined.

5. Preheat oven to 160-170 degrees C. Divide the batter into 3 portions of ½, ¼ and ¼.

to make the mini cake

1. Line and grease 3 4” baking tins with baking paper (or just reuse one pan).

2. Take the ½ batter portion and divide into 3 same size bowls. Add color with 3 different hues in each bowl.

3. Bake each layer for about 15 minutes. Let to completely cool before layering and frosting.

to make the cupcakes

1. Take the ¼ batter portion and fill cupcake liners evenly until ¾ full. Bake for 15 minutes. Frost and decorate as desired as they cool.

to make the cake pops**

1. Take another ¼ batter portion and bake in the greased and line mini baking pan for 20 minutes. Let it to completely cool.

2. Crumble baked cake with your fingers and mix in frosting until a malleable dough forms. Form dough into balls, place on a wax-paper lined cookie sheet, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3. Melt a bit of the chocolate and dip ends of lollipop sticks in melted chocolate before inserting into cake balls. Return cake balls to fridge for another 10-15 minutes.

4. Melt the rest of the chocolate in a deep bowl. Submerge each cake pop in the melted chocolate and gently tap the stick on the side of the bowl to help shake off any excess coating – you can decorate with sugar balls before they dry up. Invert cake pops onto a wax-paper lined surface and allow to dry completely.

for the cream cheese frosting

1. Cream the cream cheese and butter until well combined and fluffy on high speed.

2. Add icing sugar and continue beating, scraping the side of the bowl. Add strawberry paste and a tablespoon of milk one at a time. Add more milk until you get the desired consistency.

Notes:

- *You can simply omit this out if you don’t have this on hand but the addition will give the real super-fluffy texture, I promise. Other alternative, replace with buttermilk by adding 1 tsp. white vinegar to the milk.

- **You can watch Cake Pops Demonstration video here.

- When making cake pops, you need to work fast as working with melted chocolate because they tend to harden fast. If your candy coating or white chocolate is too thick, try adding a teaspoon of vegetable shortening or oil for silkier finish.

- I used an empty Serikaya tin to bake most of my mini cakes (about 4 inches in diameter). Cool huh?

- I didn't really use much coloring, but if you don't like the idea of coloring your cake, just keep it natural! It's all good.

- My frosting seems to be runny because I halved the above frosting recipe – like I said, I don’t love a lot of them. Anyway, they were just nice and enough for my 3 kind of cakes. Know what? It tastes like strawberry ice-cream! <3 

- You can bake the cake in three different batches a day ahead of time and crumb-coat the mini cake and then refrigerate it. Next, you can decide how many cupcakes you want depending on the batter you have. With the rest of it, I bake another layer of cake in the mini tin for cake pops as well and let to completely cool and immediately store in an airtight container.

- The next day (or right on the night), you can frost the mini cake either thinly or thickly as desired. At this point, you don’t want the frosting mixed with a bit of crumbles during the process and put it in a separate bowl. Some people will throw them away but I just saved it for the cake pops.

- As it is hard to know how much is the exact frosting you need for cake pops, crumble the cool cake from the container and mix with some frosting just until you get the play-dough consistency. Use the remaining frosting to frost the cupcakes. It is okay to have extra frosting on the cupcakes but not in the cake pops. You don’t want to waste any of them either!

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