Vanilla Cupcakes

Tonight, I made the annual end-of-semester cupcake treat that I bake for my students.  Many of my peers often look at my funny when they realize that I, yes, "bake" for my students.  My logic is this one: by the time Thanksgiving break, or Spring break rolls around, many students are exhausted and need a little sugary boost to make it through their exams.  The answer? CUPCAKES!

For this particular batch, I used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe courtesy of Paula Deen.  Many foodies know Paula as that sweet-as-pie Southern lady who uses tons of butter and sugar to make the yummiest of American comfort foods.  I love Paula as a TV personality, but have often butted heads with her recipes.  Something always goes wrong when I make a Paula recipe! Case in point: disaster key lime pie incident of 2009.  Enough said.

Thus, one might imagine my hesitation when I found this recipe, and subsequent delight when I finally tasted it.  THESE CUPCAKES ARE DELICIOUS! They're very simple, but exactly what one would want in a batch of universally pleasing vanilla cupcakes.  Add that to a simple buttercream frosting and sprinkles, and you have a real crowd pleaser!

Vanilla Cupcakes, or Paula's "Old-Fashioned Cupcakes" Recipe

Recipe courtesy of Food Network and can be found here.

Paula's original recipe calls for a mixture of cake flour with regular all-purpose flour.  For those of you who don't have cake flour on hand, I am happy to report that regular all-purpose flour works just as well.  Granted, the cupcakes don't have that cakey-density that cake flour offers, but are still light, fluffy, and vanilly-delicious!

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Old Fashioned Frosting, recipe follows

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line cupcake pans with cupcake liners.  Set aside.

2.) Combine the following ingredients in a bowl: flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add 2 sticks of butter in one inch cubes and mix with hand mixer.

3.) Then, add the wet ingredients starting with the eggs.  Add eggs one at a time, then combine milk and vanilla extract with the batter.  Mix thoroughly.  My batch was particularly lumpy with butter, so if you have this same problem and just can't get the butter to even out, don't worry, the butter will melt and combine during the baking process!

4.) Scoop batter into cupcake liners until they are about 2/3 full.  Put in oven and cook for 17-20 minutes.  If you are using a gas stove, you'll want to watch the golden-color of the cupcakes.  If the tops of the cupcakes are just beginning to turn golden brown, pull them out, because they are done! However, if the tops are golden brown, there is a very good chance you have burned bottoms (this happened with my first batch, so I made sure to pull out the cupcakes when they were just beginning to finish baking/turn golden colored.  This change made for perfect gold brown bottoms, not burnt bottoms!). Ahh...that sounds funny!

5.) Finally, wait until the cupcakes are completely cooled to decorate.  I used a spray butter cream frosting from the store, but Paula suggests you use her "Old-Fashioned Frosting" which is essentially butter cream (milk, vanilla, butter, and confectioner's sugar).  You can find the Old-Fashioned frosting on the same website as the cupcake recipe listed above.  Add frosting and sprinkle with cupcakes.  Enjoy!

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A Bit of Vegan Deliciousness at Whole Foods

Primarily, Clearly Delicious is a food and cooking blog dedicated to those recipes that I make at home.  Yet, there are times when I just can't help but share the delicious foods I encounter in other kitchens.  This Saturday, I ran several errands with Brigitte (yes, THE BRIGITTE), one of which was running to Whole Foods for a very specific list of ingredients for both of our kitchens.  You see, Brigitte is a vegan (doesn't eat meat, dairy products, or anything that comes from an animal to be exact!) and can only find many of her favorite foods at this specialty store.  Although shopping at Whole Foods can be enormously expensive, I think Brigitte has really mastered her shopping experience there.  She knows what foods are on what aisles, and when shopping, prepares her grocery list by aisle! No lie! Have you ever heard of such grocery prowess?!

For lunch, we ordered foods from the Whole Foods deli.  Since I was shopping with a vegan, I decided to eat vegan for lunch (which, contrary to popular belief, can be VERY delicious).  Below are a couple of photos of my nutritional experience--an eggplant salad tossed with herbs, sweet peppers, and a light marinade (YUM), kung pao tofu, and well, a nonvegan cupcake.  I couldn't help myself.  It was vanilla with buttercream icing shaped like flowers.  It had me at the artistry, then it had me with the promise of buttercream icing.  It was so fabulous, I am now in search of this recipe.  If anyone has ANY IDEA what recipe the whole foods pastry department uses in their cupcakes, PLEASE send it my way.  It was by far amazing.

First, this is 1/2 lb of eggplant salad:

Then, 1/2 lb of kung pao tofu:

Finally, the amazing cupcake of which I am now in search of the recipe:

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