What's Up Cupcake?: buttercream

It may seem a little early for Valentine's Day recipes, but I consider this the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe. This can be used as a blank slate to celebrate any holiday!

The cupcake itself is moist with a delicious vanilla taste, and the frosting is so light and fluffy. This recipe is going straight into my recipe binder. You can start with the base and use food coloring to decorate the cupcake for the season, or do what I did and just use simple cupcake wrappers and festive sprinkles. Cupcakes are always better with sprinkles.

To apply them, I filled a low bowl with the sprinkles I wanted to use. You can combine colors and decorations, but I stuck with a basic pink, red and white mix. Fill a piping bag (or a ziplock bag with a corner tip cut off) with frosting. Once you pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes (you can also just frost it with a knife, but piping will give it a cleaner look), hold the cupcake over the bowl of sprinkles and use a spoon to pour the sprinkles until the frosting is covered.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream
Recipe from Brown Eyed Baker

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Yield: 12 cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon table salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature
½ cup sour cream
1 large egg , room temperature
2 large egg yolks , room temperature
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Cupcake Directions:
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line standard muffin/cupcake tin with paper or foil liners.

2. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Add butter, sour cream, egg and egg yolks, and vanilla; beat at medium speed until smooth and satiny, about 30 seconds. Don't over mix or the cupcakes will be dense. Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula and mix by hand until smooth and no flour pockets remain.

3. Divide batter evenly among cups of prepared tin. Bake until cupcake tops are pale gold and toothpick or skewer inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 24 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from tin and transfer to wire rack; cool cupcakes to room temperature before frosting.

Vanilla Buttercream Ingredients:
1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2½ cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Vanilla Buttercream Directions:
1. Using the wire whisk attachment of your stand mixer, whip the butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl once or twice.

2. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the powdered sugar. Once all of the powdered sugar is incorporated, increase the speed to medium-high and add the vanilla, mixing until incorporated. Whip at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed.