Blast from my Past - Buttermilk Cupcakes

As a kind of homage to my past, I decided to make yellow buttermilk cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. You see the first thing I ever baked, from scratch that is, was a batch of buttermilk cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I can't tell you what made me want to bake them or why I thought they would be good. I remember seeing the recipe for the cupcakes in the back of a magazine, although I am not sure which one.

I remember buying all the ingredients because before then, we really did not have lots of baking goods. We had some old flour, and a small amount of sugar. And when the recipe called for cake flour as well, we kind of had no idea what that was.We didn't even really keep milk in the house (no one really liked to drink it). We had to buy baking powder and soda, and I used years old vanilla extract. Before those cupcakes, we weren't really a baking family. Sure my dad and mom cooked a lot, and very well I might add, but baking was not something either one of them really did, and if we did have some baked goods it probably came from Pillsbury, Betty Crocker or Duncan-Hines.

I got out our old, old stand mixer from the mid 80s that had a semi-broken beater and kind of sounded like it was dying when it was on. I combined the ingredients, although I had no idea about all the little things like how to measure them out correctly. I didn't even own any dry measuring cups, and instead found an ancient 1/4 cup measure that I used. I had no measuring spoons either and so I just used this old one I found at the back of our junk drawer. I didn't know to bring the eggs to room temperature or how to actually soften butter. I didn't know what 2/3 full meant when filling cupcakes. However, when it came to the timing it was like something just clicked. I got them out when they were exactly perfect, just knowing to check even when the timer said an extra 5 minutes.

Even being an extreme baking novice at the time, they still magically managed to turn out OK. Actually, better than OK, they were delicious. When my family told me how great they were, I felt really proud because it was all my work and it was all from scratch. I wouldn't say that it was like a light bulb moment and I immediately loved baking, but it showed me I could do it.

Over that first year I baked periodically. I had some disasters-like the homemade pumpkin cookies that when I went to cut the batch in half, I cut everything else but the flour and salt so the cookies were kind of salty. Slowly over that year, I started acquiring baking utensils like pans, measuring cups and extracts.

It wasn't until about a year ago I really got into baking. I started baking more and more often, although I usually stuck to cupcakes and cookies. When school started last year, I brought my goods to school. People really like my stuff, and that encouraged me to bake more. One kid offered to buy my baked goods! Pretty soon I had a hand mixer and could bake more things. I tried my hand at royal icing at Halloween for the first time, which was a big step for me. I started reading baking blogs and that gave me a lot of inspiration. Finally in April, I started one of my own. This blog gave me the excuse to try different things and my passion for baking really exploded.

Now I have come full-circle exploring the very first thing I baked, again. I am not using the same recipe as I have lost the article, but from what I can recollect it is a very similar recipe. I am frosting it in cream-cheese for the same nostalgic flavor.

Speaking on a kind of unrelated note, I was arguing my friend about something concerning cupcakes. Is a cupcake the entire package including the cake and frosting or just simply the cake. Do you say buttermilk cake and cream-cheese frosting cupcakes or do you say buttermilk cupcakes with cream-cheese frosting as two separate entities? I think a cupcake is in theory the entire package including the frosting but in a sentence it usually refers to just the cake. I don't know guys... What do you think? Leave it in a comment, if you like.

I got this recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. This will be the first recipe I try from the book, but I have used Martha Stewarts recipes for cupcakes before. The buttermilk doesn't really do anything different for the flavor that is noticeable but what it does to the texture is amazing. It makes the cake tender, and combined with the cake flour makes for an incredibly light and fluffy cake, while the all purpose flour keeps it from being too tender that it falls apart.

These cupcakes are a slight twist on the standard yellow cake-vanilla buttercream icing combo, but could work in any situation where you would normally use that, a birthday party, after dinner treat or at a picnic. Then again, some people aren't a fan of cream-cheese frosting (like my dad) but also some people don't like vanilla buttercream either (like me) so you never can please everyone! :)

Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
Makes 36 standard cupcakes (you could cut this in half for less cupcakes but be warned it calls for 5 eggs)

3 cups cake flour, like Soft-as-Silk. It is usually in a cereal-box sized box, not a bag!
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/8 cups butter (2 and 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
5 whole eggs
3 egg yolks
2 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farhenheit.Line standard muffin cups with paper liners.


2. Sift together all dry ingredients, excluding sugar, into a medium bowl.


3. With a mixer on med-high speed, cream butter and sugar until more pale in color. Reduce speed and add whole eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Add egg yolks and beat until combined.


4. Reduce speed to low or off. (Trust me you want to do this very low, it seems like an amateur mistake but not thinking I made it and flour went everywhere!) Add the sifted mixture in three batches, alternating with two batches of butter milk. (Basically like flour-buttermilk-flour-buttermilk-flour, but you probably didn't need me to reiterate that.) Beat until combined after each addition. Stir in vanilla.


5. Divide between the muffin cups, filling 3/4 full. (These do not rise a whole lot, but they do rise.)


6. Bake for around 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.


7. Once cool spread with frosting (recipe below).

Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Martha Stewart Cupcakes
Makes 4 cups (Plenty to generously frost all 36 cupcakes)

2 sticks unsalted butter
12 ounces (1 1/2 8oz packages) cream cheese
1 pound (4 cups) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

1.With a mixer on med-high speed, beat butter and cream cheese until very fluffy, around 3 minutes
2.Reduce speed to low or off and add sugar in eight increments. Scrape down bowl after each increment.
3.Once combined, add vanilla and mix until smooth.

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Hey guys, and gals too! I just wanted to say I have some really great dishes coming up as well as something really special right before my school hiatus! I got my logo up and formatted the colors. I think it looks a little bit more professional and streamlined and elegant and that is really want I am trying to convey. Hopefully it can help take this blog to new levels. Once again, thank you guys for reading. It really means the world to me!
:)
Shannon

Incredi-Cake! Kentucky Butter Cake

This cake is, as declared by my friends and family, probably the best thing I have ever made. It has the perfect balance of sweetness, moistness and tenderness. Its perfect, even without fancy frosting, fillings, or decorations. Its simple and sophisticated with just a dusting of powdered sugar. The recipe calls the cake Kentucky Butter Cake. I call it delicious.

It is a pretty simple cake. It has more ingredients than a pound cake but I would call the textures very similar, although the Kentucky cake is less dense but is more rich, if that makes sense. It has buttermilk in the batter, but I have also seen sour cream exchanged for a one to one ratio, although I have not tried it that way. Personally, I love what the flavor of buttermilk does to a cake as well as how tender it makes it, so if I find a buttermilk cake recipe I tend to use it. There is no discernible 'twang' of the buttermilk when all is done, so just because it smells like sour milk that's thickened in the jar, it won't be like that in the baked good. Also just a reminder, if your out of buttermilk or can't find it, add one tablespoon of lemon juice, or white vinegar, to a measuring cup and fill in with milk to get one cup. Wait 10 minutes and it will be thoroughly sour and thus can make a substitute for buttermilk. Speaking of not being able to find it, I went to 3 grocery stores and could not find it. When I went to 4th grocery store they had 3 different brands of it, go figure you know!

The glaze that gets sucked down by the cake is basically butter and sugar. When you melt the butter, make sure you keep the heat pretty low. You don't want brown butter, although brown butter cupcakes are pretty delicious. Sorry unrelated, I got side tracked. You just want a smooth melted butter and sugar mixture that melts the sugar smoothly. I suppose you could do it in the microwave but the microwave is so finicky when melting butter (at least mine is) that in this case, the stove top is much easier.

When the cake is a little bit cool, poke a bunch of holes with a skewer, fork, your finger, who cares. You will want to do this in your bundt or tube pan so you can flip it over and cover the holes. With a skewer you can get all the way to the bottom, or top I guess when your eating it, but I had no skewer so I went with a fork. The glaze leaves these little pockets of super moist, tender, buttery, sugary areas of goodness that are the best part. You might think all of the glaze won't suck in to the cake, but leave it for 30 minutes and it will pretty much be all gone. The cake is like a sponge, although its not like a sponge cake- I know a bit contradictory.

The cake is good served a little warm or chilled even. We ate it with the homemade blueberry jam I posted earlier, but a little bit of macerated berries or dulce de leche would be divine as well. This cake has such a simple flavor and texture (although it is far from boring) that it works well with anything. Try using leftovers or scraps in a trifle for a delicious picnic dessert.



Kentucky Butter Cake
Unknown Source
Makes a one full-size tube or bundt cake

For cake:
2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For glaze:
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
scant 1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 10-inch bundt or tube pan with a nonstick spray. You could also butter and flour if you have a tube pan but I would not reccommend buttering and flouring for a Bundt pan.

2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

3. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar for 3 minutes at medium speed.

4. Add eggs, one at a time. Continue to beat for 1 minute.

5. Alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk, ending with the flour.

6. Add vanilla or rum extract. Beat for 20 seconds.

7. Pour batter into prepared pan, and bake for about 60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

8. To make the glaze: In a small saucepan, combine sugar, butter, water and vanilla or rum extract. Do not boil, keep the heat on very low, just enough to melt it.

9. Poke the just out of the oven cake multiple times with a skewer, fork or finger if that's how you roll. Leave the cake in the pan. Pour all of the glaze over the entire cake, coating all holes and sides of cake

10. Let the cake cool completely, and soak up all glaze, before removing it from the pan.

11. Enjoy plain with powdered sugar or with a array of condiments like dulce de leche, chocolate sauce, macerated berries or jam.

Things I Would Love to Make

This is a list I have been meaning to make for a long time, of all the different items I have been meaning to make. Some I have made before, just not in a long time, although many I have never made. If anyone has any recipes for any of the following items feel free to share or link to in the comments. I would love to hear them!

1. Key Lime Pie
2. Tiramisu
3. Yeast Bread
4. Donuts*
5. Cannolis
6. Tuiles
7. Tres Leches Cake
8. Pizza Crust
9. Pumpkin Bread
10. Lemon Meringue Pie
11. Cranberry Cake
12. Madeleines*
13. Short bread
14. Flag Cake
15. Scones
16. Fig and Goat Cheese Tarts
17. Cheese Danish
18. Eclairs
19. Homemade Flan
20. Granita
21. Marshmallows
22. Savory tarts
23. Churros
24. Ice Cream*
25. Rhubarb Crisp
26. Fondant covered anything*
27. Petit Fours
28. Cheese Muffins
29. Bombe glacée
30. Meringue cookies
31. Cookie Dough Cupcakes
32. Panna Cotta
33. Graham Crackers
34. Lemon Curd

* do not have required equipment

Baking Escapades

So, here are some pictures of random baking endeavors. Most of these were for birthdays, although some were just because. There has been much more than this, although these were relatively aestically appeasing compared to some. Others simple were gobbled up too fast to be photographed.


Yellow Butter Cake, with homemade fudge icing. The letters and flowers are made out of candy melts which I used to draw over wax paper.



Espresso flavored sponge cake, with white chocolate sour cream frosting, with bittersweet chocolate onlays. Yes I drew all of those by hand, without a pattern. I just melted some bittersweet chocolate, then I put it into a zip baggie--no need to waste those expensive disposable piping bags, then I piped it out onto wax paper and let it dry. The cappuccino cups are my favorite but they were very hard to transfer without breaking.



These were strawberry cupcakes, made on a whim one Sunday night, that I decorated using my gradient frosting technique. The frosting is vanilla. I decorated them with various pink and white jimmies and non-perials.


These were cupcakes I made for my friends birthday. They are vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, however the vanilla cake was colored 4 different neon colors and then marbled together in the cupcake cup. You can see a hint of it in the photo. I then decorated them with various types of sprinkles including crunchy rainbow, soft chocolate jimmies, praline crunch, and neon dinosaur confetti. Some had lots of sprinkles and some had very few. My friend loved them when I gave them to her in first period, and by 5th they were gone!

Some of the things that didn't get photographed: vanilla bean cheesecake, blackberry butter cream vanilla cupcakes, chocolate chip muffins, banana bread, espresso chocolate cake,apple pocket pie, blackberry tart, peanut butter cup cookie dough mini cupcakes, blueberry crumb pie, red velvet cupcakes, cupcake bites, and more.