vanilla vanilla + sprinkles!

on tuesday, in a stroke of inspiration and sugar-craving, i decided to make cupcakes for a friend's birthday. ariff and i are extreme fans of baked goods, and i have tried my hand at making quite a number of cakes, breads and other desserts in the past. my go-to recipe has always been my mother's pound cake recipe because of its reliable results. about 5 years ago, however, i discovered that there are a number of quite reliable recipes to choose from on the internet, some of which i've tried and turned out extremely well. from then on, i've put aside the pound cake recipe in favour of adventure in the sea of delicious desserts and melt-in-the-mouth morsels! (but i still go back to the pound cake recipe when i screw a new recipe up. my umbrella on a rainy day!)

cupcakes baking in my oven. i always feel an indescribable feeling of achievement 

when i see them rising like this 

my little helper frosting the chocolate cupcakes and bikini people

in my rather limited experience of baking, i've realized that baking really IS chemistry. it's an orchestration of ingredients and their measurements, temperature, technique and passion. you cannot rely on just a good recipe to get good results. you have to cream the butter and sugar the right way, remember not to dump in all of the flour at once, make sure the eggs are beat in well and, afterwards, not to overbeat the mixture. all these steps ensure that there will be enough air in the butter and sugar mixture to lift the cake while its baking, that the gluten in the flour is not so overdeveloped that it produces a tough cake, and that the eggs emulsify in the batter as the protein coagulates while baking and helps to hold the shape of the cake. though cooking is also a chemical process that produces flavour in food, i find that baking hinges on more precise and complex use of chemical reactions to produce yummy treats. and this is precisely why sometimes i fail, quite miserably so too. 


however, on tuesday, i wanted to make sure that i didn't repeat any of my past mistakes that resulted in gritty cupcakes (because i didn't cream the butter and sugar enough, there were sugar crystals that didn't melt into the batter) or sunken cupcakes (because i was too curious. i opened the oven door too many times so the oven's temperature dropped and affected the 'baking' process of the cake batter). i diligently followed the tips provided on baking websites such as baking911 and the cupcake bakeshop, and voila! i am happy to report that they turned out rather well!

Magnolia Cupcakes (picture taken from here) 

are they not the prettiest things you've ever seen in your life?

i decided that i wanted to make the famous Magnolia Vanilla Vanilla cupcakes as i was feeling rather nostalgic about my time in new york a few years ago. magnolia bakery is famous for its cupcakes, most remembered for its reference on the tv show 'sex and the city'. i found the recipe on food network:


Ingredients for cupcakes:


1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract


the steps for making the cupcakes were so easy: sift flours together, cream butter and sugar, add eggs, alternately add flour and liquids in three parts, bake. easy! i used an electric mixer (wedding gift from my dear debate friends!) and followed the tips from the websites i referred to earlier. i made sure that the butter (not really at room temperature, but still a little firm because the electric mixer warms everything up anyway) and sugar were creamed till light and fluffy but not till the point of being oily, and that i beat the eggs well after each addition. from my past baking missions, i find that these two steps are where i screw up the most and end up with grainy or eggy cake. 

the recipe is supposed to yield 24 cupcakes, but i used a mixture of muffin and cupcake liners and ended up with about 30. they bake for 20-25 minutes at 180d celsius. a note though: i decided to use muffin liners at first because mine are a cute light blue and white polka dot pattern, but i soon discovered that baking cupcakes in muffin liners, no matter how cute they are, is not worth it because it can be rather messy. the cake shrinks away from the structured paper liner and leaves a great moat of nothingness between liner and cake, and the edges of the paper liner are usually crumb-y. all this made the icing process quite a tediously messy affair. 

get set, ready, bake!

the frosting for the cakes is actually an old-fashioned butter and icing sugar mixture:

Ingredients for frosting:


1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
6-8 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

method: cream half of the sugar with everything, then add the remaining sugar until you achieve the desired consistency.


i only made half a batch as i am always skeptical about frosting recipes. but even with just 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of sugar, the frosting turned out to be extremely sweet! i had already expected this because icing sugar frostings do tend to be on the toothachingly sweet side because it relies on large amounts of sugar to achieve spreadable consistencies. basically, it's just a pile of sugar with a little butter and flavour. *yuck*. i was not at all happy with it, so i added a little lemon juice and zest which adds a little acid to cut down on the sweetness. it turned out alright, but i decided not to ice the cupcakes as i usually would i.e. piping a blob on top of it. instead i spread some with a palette knife, just enough to stick sprinkles on.


oh yes! sprinkles! i learnt that if you put some sprinkles on a plate or bowl and dip the iced tops of the cupcakes, it produces a heavenly crunchy crust! it's a colourful way to add some texture. how fun!

at the end of it though, i was very pleased with the results of the cake. the tiny smidge of frosting on top was just enough to make it, to use a friend's description, dreamy. 

vanilla vanilla + sprinkles!

i make dream cupcakes, so please, call me the sandman :) (with compliments to Magnolia Bakery of course).