Thursday, September 15, 2011

Chai Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

A couple weeks ago, I hosted a girls night at my house. To me, a good girls night always has to include good food for it to be successful. Since I’m a baker, I of course made a couple different desserts to serve. Here’s the thing: I’m always hesitant to make cupcakes because I can’t ice them nicely. Yeah, I’m weird like that. This time though, I had a craving for cupcakes (ha!) and needed to satisfy that craving. I figured I would just go ahead and slather on some icing and call it a day. Little did I know, Stephen and I would end up watching Youtube videos so that we could perfect our icing technique. I can now proudly say that I can ice a good looking cupcake, and Stephen can pipe buttercream roses.

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These are some pretty awesome cupcakes, if I do say so myself. They’re moist with just a subtle spice flavor. Everyone at girls night thought that they were banana cupcakes though, so I’m not quite sure what’s up with that. My guess is that they’re not used to seeing a moist cupcake with dark flecks reminiscent of banana bread. The recipe says that it makes 12 cupcakes, but I just barely got that number. This buttercream recipe is also awesome, and is now going to be my go to recipe. It’s easy to whip together and holds up to piping very well. It’s also easy to flavor if you want to try something a little different.

Chai Cupcakes
From 125 Best Cupcake Recipes

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp allspice
pinch of salt
1 chai spice tea bag
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a muffin pan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cardamom and allspice. Open up the chai tea bag and whisk in the contents.
3. In a large bowl, beat together sugar and butter. Add in egg whites, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Mix in vanilla.
4. Fold in the flour mixture.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

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Vanilla Buttercream
From Glorious Treats

1 cup butter
4 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp heavy cream

1. Using the whisk attachment of an electric mixer, beat butter until smooth.
2. Add half of the icing sugar, one cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Mix in vanilla, then 1 tbsp of heavy cream.
4. Beat in the last 2 cups of icing sugar, one cup at a time.
5. Add the remaining heavy cream; adding more if necessary to achieve the desired consistency. Beat until smooth.

Enjoy!

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