52 Sundays of Dessert: Week 5
Happy Easter!
For this weekend, I chose a simple cupcake recipe to fit the colorful palette that most people associate with Easter and the beginning of spring.
It's nice to take a break from the babkas and upside-down desserts of the world and fall back on a basic cupcake that even I couldn't mess up. These still took a while, but mainly because I decided to have fun with the frosting and a little bit of food coloring.
For the first Sunday in a few weeks, we finally had sunshine. It felt rather fitting for an Easter afternoon and it also made it nice to work on my new Alice in Wonderland puzzle on the table by the window.
If you ever want to be challenged putting a puzzle together, all you need is any old puzzle and Jasper. Apparently it's a riot for her to lie down on the puzzle in progress and start rolling around. It must be like a kid jumping into a bunch of colorful plastic balls at a fast food joint the way she seems to relish destroying my hours of hard work.
Thankfully, most of it was salvaged this morning.
Anyway, despite the fact that these cupcakes have butter, sour cream AND cream cheese in them, Adam seemed to do all right milk/lactose-wise.
Before I run into the next recipe that requires frosting anything though, I am definitely in the market for a good pastry bag. I just can't get the icing techniques I want out of scissors and a sandwich baggie. Still, I think these turned out adorable.
Though straightforward, these cupcakes were a big hit. There were five of us and yet somehow nine cupcakes went missing. I think it was mostly due to the fact that Thomas was seeing how the yellow one tasted different from the green one, and so on. Because they do, you know.
And now, how to eat a cupcake:
Flower Cupcakes
Via Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Ina Garten.
Difficulty rating: 2 out of 10. This is a pretty simple recipe. The only difficulty is having to separately dye the icing.
Cupcakes:
- 18 Tbsp. (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 2/3 C. sugar
- 6 extra-large eggs, room temperature
- 1 C. sour cream, room temperature
- 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 3 C. all-purpose flour
- 1/3 C. cornstarch
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
- 1 tsp. baking soda
Icing:
- 24 Tbsp. (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 lb. cream cheese, at room temperature
- 3/4 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted (I did the math = 2 5/8 C.)
- 1 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
Side note: Does anyone else have the issues I do with sifting powdered sugar? It gives me such a rough time, trying to sift it through without it clogging up multiple times.
Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pans with paper liners.
Making the Cupcakes:
Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. On medium speed, add the eggs, two at a time, then add the sour cream and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and stir until smooth.
Sift the flour, cornstarch, salt and baking soda into a bowl. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until just combined. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter. Bake in the center of the oven for about 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool to room temperature.
Making the Icing:
Mix the butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, on low speed, just until smooth. Spread the frosting generously on top of each cupcake.
Liz's coloring technique:
Scoop out about a quarter of the icing (mine somehow still had small clumps of what I have to guess was the powdered sugar; it bugged me, but if yours does too, don't worry about it), add a very small amount of food coloring to start and stir with spoon until completely mixed. Add more as needed until you've achieved the depth of color you want.
I had only green as a liquid food coloring. The yellow, red and blue were gels. I would recommend buying all liquid versions (though I already had the gels on hand and decided to save the money) because you would be able to use them more sparingly. However, any type of food coloring will work. Use red the most sparingly to get a rosy pink color.
Once you've gotten your icings toned to your satisfaction, frost the cupcakes and top with sprinkles of your choosing. Eat!