Sweet vanilla cupcakes

After almost 8 years of blogging, baking cupcakes are still one of my favorite things to bake.
The reason I love cupcakes so much is that you can change up the flavor and you can top it with any frosting you love, and it is so easy to make.
These cupcakes below is Sweet Vanilla Cupcakes, I came up with that name because they are a bit sweeter than my regular cupcake, and because I think they look so sweet and cute.

Sweet Vanilla Cupcakes are soft and delicious, with a double dose of vanilla – both vanilla seeds and extract.

Sweet Vanilla Cupcakes (18 cupcakes)

• 1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter at room temp
• 1 cup (225g) regular sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthways and seeds scraped out
• 2 large eggs, at room temp
• 2 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups (280 g) all-purpose flour, sifted
• 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cup (300 ml) whole milk, at room temp

• Preheat the oven to 350 ºF (180 ºC).
• Put the butter, sugar, and seeds from the vanilla bean into a mixing bowl.
• Beat until fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.
• Add the eggs, one at a time. beating until the eggs are just incorporated.
• Add the vanilla extract with the last egg.
• Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt at least twice.
• Tip into the mixing bowl with the milk and beat until everything is well blended.
• Line a cupcake tray with paper cases.
• I use an ice cream scoop to divide the mixture between the paper cases, that way the cupcakes will have the same size.
• Leave the cupcake tray on the kitchen counter for 30 minutes before you bake these off, this is optional but I feel it gives better cupcakes
• Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 18 minutes.
• Leave to cool completely before decorating with the White Cloud Frosting, you can find the recipe here, alternatively go here to find other recipes for frostings.

To give the frosting a pale pastel color, use just a tiny drop of food coloring. Here I have used the following food colorings:

• sky blue from Wilton
• lemon from Wilton
• pink from Wilton
• To decorate these cupcakes I used an Ateco 849 tip. I piped 3 swirls and then sprinkled with pretty white nonpareils and a lovely sugar pearl for each cupcake.
• I just love these cupcakes.

I hope you are tempted, and that you’ll have a wonderful weekend.