Soccer Birthday Cupcakes

These are Billy's Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream for a friend's birthday. She is a serious soccer player and she was bringing these cupcakes on her birthday to a soccer game. The team's colors are gold and black so we did gold foil liners with black non pareils and a pick with her picture on one side and a soccer ball on the other.

Billy's Vanilla, Vanilla Cupcakes

Today's cupcake is Billy's Vanilla, Vanilla Cupcakes. It was fabulous. Very moist. Buttery. It's topped with the Easy Vanilla Buttercream found in prior posts. There were oohs and ahhs all around. It's the first recipe I've made using cake flour. Interestingly enough, none of the chocolate recipes I've found call for it. I may substitute it one of these days and see what happens.

Ingredients
Makes about 30 cupcakes
1 3/4 cups cake flour, not self-rising
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until just coated with flour.

2. In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat.

3. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.

4. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat process with remaining batter. Once cupcakes have cooled, use a small offset spatula to frost tops of each cupcake. Decorate with sprinkles, if desired. Serve at room temperature.

Last week I made Magnolia Bakery's vanilla cupcake. Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures. They tasted good but were not pretty as I tried to bake two 12 cup pans in the oven at the same time They did not cook evenly AT ALL. I topped them with Martha's recipe for Swiss Meringue Buttercream. A pain in the ass to make without a standing mixer but oh so delicious. The general consensus was that the Magnolia cupcake had "cornbread with butter on top" flavor. Interesting. I would not have said that but I was in the minority. I definitely want to try the cupcake recipe again and see if the results are the same.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Easy Vanilla Buttercream

This recipe I didn't care for. It had brown sugar and coffee granules in it. Not bad but not great.

The frosting was easy and delicious. I used a closed star tip (#5) from my Williams Sonoma Mechanical Pastry Bag set. A gift from my darling sister-in-law.

Easy Vanilla Buttercream from Cook's Illustrated

Makes 1 1/2 cups, enough for 12 cupcakes. Published March 1, 2005.

This can be made ahead and refrigerated; if refrigerated, however, it must stand at room temperature to soften before use. If using a hand-held mixer (which I did), increase mixing times significantly (at least 50 percent). This recipe can be doubled to make enough for a two-layer cake.

Ingredients
10 tablespoons unsalted butter , softened
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar (5 ounces)
Pinch table salt
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon heavy cream

Instructions
In standing mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add confectioners' sugar and salt; beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds; scrape bowl, add vanilla and heavy cream, and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice.