Vanilla Cupcakes

Hello there 🙂 🙂

 A few weeks ago, I learned that my friend Travis had never baked cupcakes before in his life. I was completely shocked that he had made it almost 28 years on this planet without ever making them, so we got together last Wednesday to bake. I loved this recipe I got from my grandmother so much that I wanted to share it here. I have no idea where she got it from, but credit to whoever came up with this perfect cupcake recipe. 

Ingredients: 

• ½ tsp salt
• 2 ½ tsp baking powder
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup butter
• 1 ¾ cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 1 ¼ cups milk

Steps: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bring eggs and butter to room temperature. Insert cupcake liners into two pans. 
2. Mix together the salt, flour, and baking powder in a bowl (dry mixture).
3. In a separate bowl, beat butter. Then add sugar and beat until combined. Continue to beat, and add eggs and vanilla (wet mixture). 
4. Add part of the dry mixture to the wet mixture and beat. Then add some milk, and beat. Continue this alternation until all of the dry mixture and the milk have been added. Mix well. Then pour into cupcake pans (about half-full).  
5. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the cupcakes are a golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean from the centre. 
6. Cool for at least 15 minutes before removing from pans. 

And now for the frosting!!!

Ingredients: 

• ¾ cups butter, softened
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 tsp vanilla

1. Beat softened butter together with some icing sugar. Add the vanilla and some milk. Then alternate between adding sugar and milk until happy with frosting consistency. Note: If frosting is too thin –> add sugar    If frosting is too thick –> add milk

Cooking notes:

1. Well, first off, my friend did not own an electric mixer so we picked up two whisks for $3.50, one large and one small, and beat everything together by hand. My arm definitely got a good workout, and by the end of it, only one whisk was left standing; the other was in pieces in the sink. Good to know though that hand beating can do just as good of a job; it just takes a bit longer. 
2. We found that the cupcakes were not fully baked after 15 minutes, so we left them in for the full 18 minutes.
3. We also didn’t have a toothpick, so the cupcakes were tested using a sanitized paper clip. Talk about high quality bakeware. 
4. Finally, I wrote out the recipe wrong, with 8 cups of icing sugar needed for the icing, not 4. We got 4 in, but had enough icing to do probably another 24 cupcakes. Oh well, I can always make a cake and use it up. 

Let me know how you find this recipe if you try it out 🙂 🙂 What have you been baking these days???