{The Girl Kyle Bakes} Another Vanilla Cupcake

If the former post didn't give you any indication, I will shout it from the rooftops.  I LOVE VANILLA CUPCAKES!  Call me boring, but they're my favorite.  Any occassion where I'm out of town and I might have the opportunity to try a new cupcake shop I always select vanilla and some other wildcard.  By choosing the same kind of cupcake every time I feel like I'm turning my cupcake obsession into more of a science.  A constant and a variable right?  It's been a long time since I'm been in a science class. I'm constantly collecting recipes, by digital bookmark and physical sheets of paper.  The printed recipes are everywhere; in my purse, in a kitchen cabinet, in a box next to my bed.  You never know where there might be a special recipe folded up and tucked away somewhere.  When I come across a random stack, more often than not there will be multiple variations on vanilla.  With vanilla beans, with extract, buttermilk, cake flour vs. all purpose... The ultimate vanilla cupcake is waiting for me to uncover it.  Recently I was perusing The Pioneer Woman at work and I love to look over other people's blog roll.   Out of all our bookmarks out there only a special few are chosen to be on our blogs listed under something catchy like, 'Daily Reads'.  One of the first ones I clicked on was called Sweetapolita and it was like a visual orgasm.  All her photos are so beautiful and it makes every baked good look mouth watering! It was hard to choose which recipe to try first so of course I went with my trusty default: vanilla.

Vanilla Bean Cake

Yield: 19-20 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup  unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups  granulated sugar
• 5 egg whites, at room temperature
• 2 1/4 cups  all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon  salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 tablespoon (I used Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Bean Paste – 4 oz)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.  Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until lighter in color and slightly increased in volume, 3 to 5 minutes. Lower the speed to medium and add the egg whites gradually, mixing until fully incorporated.

3. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Mix vanilla extract and vanilla paste (or contents of vanilla bean) into buttermilk.  Alternate dry ingredients and buttermilk into creamed mixture, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Mix until just incorporated or finish by hand gently.

4. Fill the cupcake papers a little more than 3/4 full. Bake betweeen 16-18 minutes, rotating once halfway through. Cake is done when toothpick or skewer comes clean.

5. Let pans cool on wire rack for 3-5 minutes, then remove cupcakes and all to completely cool on your rack.

For frosting I attempting a swiss meringue buttercream, but failed miserably.  It never stiffened up so I threw half of it away and then added powdered sugar until I got a stiffness I was looking for.  Then I added about 3/4 cup of strawberry puree.  Sorry for no actual recipe at this time!