Vanilla Vanilla Cupcakes

Vanilla Cupcake, adapted from BakingBites
Makes 10

6 tbsp butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F.
Line 10 muffin cups with paper liners.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. When light and fluffy, beat in the egg.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. In a measuring cup, combine the buttermilk and vanilla extract.
With the mixer on low speed (or by hand), stir one third of the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Blend in half of the buttermilk, followed by another third of the flour mixture. Stir in remaining buttermilk/vanilla and the rest of the flour, mixing only until no streaks of flour remain. Divide evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full.
Bake for 22-24 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed. Cool in pan for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

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1-2-3 Swiss Meringue Buttercream, adapted from DyannBakes
Makes enough to lightly frost 10 cupcakes

1oz egg white, at room temp
2oz sugar (I used 1.5oz)
3oz butter, cut into 1″ pieces, cool but not hard

Place egg white and sugar in a heat proof bowl place bowl over a water bath on the stove.
On low heat, whisk until all the sugar is dissolved. Test by rubbing a bit of the mixture between your fingers. It shouldn’t feel grainy anymore. At this point, it should also be sticky, thick and glossy.
Scrape the mixture into a stand mixer bowl, or use a hand mixer.
Whisk the mixture until it is cool to the touch, then add the butter in piece by piece. Keep whisking. It might look curdled for a while, but it will come back together.
Do not refrigerate before frosting the cupcakes with it. It will harden in the fridge and become difficult to use. It sits fine at room temperature in Singapore (about 30 degrees Celsius).

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I tried piping the frosting on, but my piping skills just don’t cut it. In the end I just smeared the frosting on instead and topped the cupcakes with a drizzle of chocolate glaze which I had sitting around in the fridge. You could just use melted chocolate too.

I made the mistake of storing my cupcakes in the fridge. The turned hard after that. Should have just kept them at room temperature. Perhaps that problem occurs when butter is used instead of oil… Oh well. I’ll know better next time!

Dulce de Leche

My workplace introduced a series of US cakes to the dessert line up recently. There are 7 cakes, and there was one which particularly caught my attention – Dulce de Leche Cheesecake.

After looking up Dulce de Leche on the internet (I love the internet and I can’t live without it), it sounded like just the thing I would love. I’m a great fan of caramel, and homemade Dulce de Leche seemed too easy to resist.

Now, I saw many which had the instructions “Boil a can of condensed milk”. I’m a chicken. I’ve got no guts to do that, however much assured that it will not explode. Nuh uh. I went for the method of boiling half a litre of milk with some sugar and a pinch of baking soda until I got nice, carmelised colour.

I used this to top Dorie Greenspan’s Classic Tall and Creamy Cheesecake which I had made earlier on in the day (forgot about photos). Pretty damn tasty imo.