Vanilla Cupcakes Round 2

Hello readers!  First let me say, you will be hearing from me a little more while our precious KK (as I lovingly refer to her) is recovering from an operation she had.  She's fine, all is well, and the surgery went great, but do keep her in your thoughts and prayers and she recovers!  Kate, we love you and the blog will miss you in your absence!  No rush on the fish tacos recipe- haha!

Remember about 6 weeks ago when I started the quest to find the perfect vanilla cupcake?  Well, here's take 2.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I think I've found it in this recipe, although I am going to try one more recipe and then decide the best out of the 3.  I've been collecting a lot of great recipes on Pinterest (obsessed!) and this recipe is one of the recipes I've come across.  This baker was featured on Martha Stewart and made these cupcakes in a way that I'd never seen (he used a one bowl method) and I've gotta tell ya, they are DIVINE.  Scott even went so far as to use the word "awesome" and he does NOT use that word unless he means it.  The other cupcakes I made in Round 1 were definitely delicious, especially with the hint of lemon, and certainly have room on any dessert table, but the cupcakes that I just made for this Round 2 really have room on any dessert table.  They are the perfect mix between the lightness you'd find from a box mix (how does Duncan Hines do it??), yet still dense without being heavy and chewy.  Their flavor is outstanding and with the vanilla buttercream, it's definitely going to be hard to beat, but alas I will try another recipe just to be sure that this cupcake really is the bee's knees.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!  Have you made the other cupcake?  What were your thoughts?  Try them both and stay tuned for Round 3 so we can all discover which of the three we like best!  Everyone needs a good cupcake recipe, right?  Or, if you have a favorite vanilla cupcake that you've made, please share the recipe with us in our comments section. 


a few notes from this recipe:

use CAKE flour- it should have NO leavening agents in it- this brand is great.

when you get to the step about mixing in your butter, I copied the baker from the Martha Stewart video and just took chunks of it with a knife and incorporated it as I was beating.  It's room temp butter which the recipe doesn't specify but the video does.  It's significantly easier to do this in a stand mixer, but since I'm traveling,  this is what I had to work with.

after your butter is incorporated, it will look kinda mealy- that's ok.  There were moments when I thought these cupcakes wouldn't turn out for various reasons, but they turned out beautifully.

 

here's my big lovebug.  I used the jumbo sized muffin tins to make these- Scott and I split one and had to eat it with a fork!  The original recipe says it will make 30, but I'd say if you're using the jumbo muffin pan, you can expect to yield about 8.

 

 

 

ok let me explain why the icing (though glorious) is slowly sliding down the cupcake and doesn't look firm at all: Scott insisted on  me icing one so we could have one WHILE they were still hot.  I told him what the consequences would be and he didn't care- droopy icing or not, he was gonna have his cupcake!  Soooo we got a plate and devoured it.

 

I promise I was going to take a picture of the middle of the cupcake for you guys, but I couldn't very well leave the cupcake to Scott to finish!!  Plus it was too delicious to leave...  I'll take a picture of one of the other cupcakes' center to post later.  Promise. In the meantime, GO TRY THESE CUPCAKES! They are money in the bank!