The other day I did some baking with friends and decided to do an all out experimental cupcake baking session. What this amounted to was basically a ridiculous variety of toppings, flavorings, batter fillings, and whatnot. And a really good basic batter and buttercream frosting recipe.
I used two recipes from Allrecipes.com:
The Batter: Simple White Cake Recipe
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk
Cream butter and sugar, add eggs. Add vanilla, then combine dry ingredients and add in. Add the milk last, and then spoon into cupcake tins and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
The only thing I changed was adding an extra 1/4 cup of milk, because some of the reviews suggested doing so to get a moist cupcake. To make chocolate cupcakes, I added cocoa powder to the batter.
We added things like oreos, sprinkles, peanut butter, lemon extract, rum flavoring, and chocolate chips to the batter to mix things up.
And then for the frosting...
Simple and Delicious Buttercream Frosting
5 tablespoons salted butter
5 tablespoons shortening
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk
Beat butter and shortening together until fluffy. Add vanilla, then sugar, one cup at a time. Add milk by tablespoon.
This again we jazzed up with different extracts and chocolate and jams and whatnot.
These cupcakes are like a light pound cake texture and didn't turn out overwhelmingly sweet, which I liked.
Enjoy!
