Super-moist vanilla cupcakes [recipe in pictures]

Mmmmmm cupcakes.

A good vanilla cupcake that's not dry, dense, or overly crumbly is hard to find. Which is why it's about time I got this one blogged. I happen to think it's quite delicious. (Is fresh butter whipped to pale creamy perfection with sugar ever not???)

For Ella's 2nd birthday over a year ago I made them with these marshmallow flowers on top (see here) and I think it's just our new thing that we do with cupcakes now. So easy and kids (and adults) love 'em.

A pictorial recipe post, perhaps?

Cream butter and sugar...

Beat in the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla...

...Until you are left with a goobery mess, to which you can add all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder - miking sure it's not gone hard -, and salt) and the milk. You can sift the dry ingredients in, or be lazy like me and decide that it's ALLLLL G and makes no difference anyway unless your baking powder was dried into hard clumps to begin with. 

If I had to choose one raw food to eat for the rest of my life..... I think this would be it. 

(Along with maybe my cousin Lizzy's brownie batter).

Did you think I meant raw food like avocado coconut oil banana quinoa bliss balls? 

Wrong blog, wrong blog.

Just look at it. I could cry.

Fill approx12 cupcake holders up to 2/3 full. These silicon ones have changed my muffin-pan-scrubbing life.

And slide into your oven, which is heated to 180C/350F.

Listen to your 3 year old bark "Don't use it all! Leave some for me!!!!"

After about 12-14 minutes they should be starting to go golden brown. Remove from oven and let them cool.

When they're fully cool, it's icing time. I just made a plain butter cream but my taste-tesing husband said he would've preferred cream cheese so, obvs, ice them how you like. But in the interests of over-blogging, here's how I make buttercream.

Soft butter:

... beaten in the mixer until it's pale and fluffy, almost white:

... icing sugar added:

 .. eat a large spoonful, unless you are dairy-free like me in which case just listen to your kid whinge and whine and beg to eat it. "Can I eat dat? Can I eat dat? Can I eat dat now? Can I eat all dat??????"

There's no milk added so none of that weird curdly texture.

Flavour with vanilla, tint with a few drops of colouring (we used some blue to create this pale minty colour:)

For flowers I use ye olde Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book's technique that every child in Australia and New Zealand grew up with in the 80's and 90's and beyond.

You get Pascal's marshmallows, slice 'em and dip 'em, like so.

Sprinkles aren't exactly fancy but kids lurrrvvve them.

Coloured sugar or jelly crystals make a classier-looking dip but I knew my apprentice would be happy with plain old sprinkles.

Nice and rustic ;)

The end result is really cute.

Enjoy your cute cupcakes!

Recipe:

115g butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons milk

100g sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pinch salt

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy

2. Beat in the eggs, sourcream, and vanilla.

3. Gently sift in the flour, baking powder and salt, and milk, then mix until just combined.

4. Spoon into cupcake cases - fill each one up to two-thirds full.

5. Bake at 180 degrees celcius 12-14minutes, until just golden.


For the buttercream: whip 125g soft butter until very pale. Mix in 1.75 cups icing sugar, then add 1 tsp vanilla extract and colour as you like.

Let me know if you try these and how they turn out. They taste like nostalgia and birthday parties to me!