Alana
Friday was was my last day of clinical (WOOOOO!), so being a good nursing student I brought cupcakes to thank the unit staff. I wanted to do something in Christmas spirit, so I figured some bright colours it would be easier than try and put together a more complicated recipe. I seriously considered box cake because I needed this whole cupcake thing to happen the morning of. This was, however, the first time I’ve been able to bake in a long time. That means a box cake cop-out would have been unacceptable.
Festive!
I wanted to use combinations of white and green, and red and white for these cupcakes. I decided that I needed a white cake recipe for the best effect. I used Sweetapolita’s Cherry-Vanilla Delight Cake as my starting point. Really this just involved taking out the cherry parts to make it vanilla. I actually wanted to make the batter white chocolate, but I thought we had white chocolate so I didn’t buy any when I went to Safeway. Oooops!
Pretty much the same picture as before, but in green!
For the frosting I wanted to do something minty, so all I really had to do was take a basic frosting recipe and add peppermint extract. Not that exciting. Sorry I mentioned it. If you actually are interested, I tweaked the icing recipe from my White Chocolate Orange Cupcakes. I replaced the orange flavour with peppermint extract, and cut down on the icing sugar (because I maybe ran out…).
… oops.
Anyways, these seemed to go over pretty well. I don’t think there is much I would do differently when I make these again (because I assume I will). Cheers!
Vanilla Cupcakes
Ingredients:
- 3-1/3 cups (370 g) sifted cake flour
- 1-½ tablespoons (20 g) baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon (7 g) salt
- 1-¾ cups (415 ml) whole milk, at room temperature
- 6 egg whites, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon (5 mL) vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon (1.75 ml) almond extract
- 2-¼ cups (450 g) granulated sugar
- 1-½ sticks (173 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
Directions:
- Fill your cupcake tins with liners, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium sized bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk together.
- In a medium-large sized bowl, add the whole milk, egg whites, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Whisk together until combined.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (~ 5 minutes).
- Add the dry and wet ingredients to the bowl of the electric mixing, alternating between dry and wet (3 dry and 2 wet). Mix each addition on medium speed until incorporated.
- Once all the ingredients are mixed together, mix for another 2 minutes. If you have any colours to add, fold them into the batter.
- Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners until ~2/3-¾ full. Bake for 16 minutes, until toothpicks come out clean.
Peppermint Frosting
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1tbsp vanilla
- 325g icing sugar (~ 2 ½ cups)
- ½ tsp peppermint extract
Directions:
1. Cream the butter until pale and fluffy (about 6 minutes, but I didn’t actually watch the time). Add the vanilla and peppermint extract, and beat to combine.
2. Add the confectioners’ sugar, beating well.
3. Add colours (if you want to) and beat thoroughly, scraping the sides as you go.
Chateau Gateau 