Sunday, February 20, 2011
Hi there, Meg the Baker here. I’m today’s guest blogger for the “Short and Sweet” blog. This weekend we have been in a baking frenzy, and are definitely running low on confectioner's sugar. Crisis!
So when I arrived on Saturday afternoon, we started on some blueberry scones, made with Bisquick mix. A very simple and delicious recipe, with a lemon glaze, that can be found
here. They came out really light, not the usual dense scone, sort of like a biscuit. Super easy!
After dinner we then made some chocolate dipped strawberries, simply by microwaving some Tollhouse Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips and dipping some massive strawberries in it. And when I say massive, I mean like three small ones grew into one. Massive. [They didn't stick around long enough for us to get a picture if you know what I mean]
Finally this morning we did the usual Sunday thing and made Buddy Valastro's [aka the Cake Boss] Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream. The hardest part about this recipe, which is not hard at all, was having the patience to wait for the milk, buttermilk, eggs, and butter to come to room temperature. When you're excited to bake, and want to start immediately, it's such a buzz kill waiting for the ingredients to come to the proper temperature.
Anyway, we preheated the oven, and then lined the cupcake tins with the same festive pink and red cupcake liners from last week's post.
In the handy-dandy stand mixer, we beat together butter and sugar, then add one egg and egg white. Then alternately added the dry mixture [whisked together flour, baking powder, salt) and wet mixture (milk, buttermilk, vanilla extract]. We scraped down sides periodically and mixed until basically combined. The recipe advises that the mixture may not look smooth, and that's alright.
Although the recipe claims that it will make 24 cupcakes if you fill the liners 3/4 of the way with the batter, we filled it that much and it only made 18 cupcakes. Fine by us, but FYI if you're making these in bulk for an event or something. Bake for 25 minutes, and voila, you've got cupcakes.
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| Just out of the oven |
Waiting patiently again [soooo difficult!] for the cupcakes to cool, we started on the vanilla buttercream frosting. We beat the butter together with a ton of confectioner's sugar [also known as 10x sugar, learning moment]. Then added milk, salt, vanilla extract, and pure vanilla bean -- the exciting ingredient of the day! Since today was a special day, of course since I made a guest appearance, we splurged and used this fine (yet expensive) bean. It was strangely thrilling to carve out all of those itty, bitty specks of bean to add to the icing mixture, making it look like Breyer's vanilla bean ice cream.
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| Vanilla Butter Cream Icing |
Using a piping bag and tip, we piped the icing onto the [finally!] cooled off cupcakes, to produce some fabulous little confections. I think it's one of the best cupcakes I've ever had, the icing was extremely vanilla-y, but definitely made a nice little dessert.
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| Finished Product |
Overall, we were successful in our baking adventure today. Stay tuned until next week and remember - guest bakers are always welcome :)
