A friend of mine from my undergrad years is living in KL, Malaysia.
She has recently given birth to an adorable baby boy. So hubby and I went to
visit her over the weekend. She loves my blog and all my recipes! So I wanted
to bake some cookies and cupcakes for her and her hubby.
I tried out some Butter Cookies with my cookie press, recipe
to be posted soon. And I also made some vanilla bean cupcakes. I have made
vanilla cupcakes before, but this recipe from Annie’s Eats, called for actual
vanilla pods! I happened to have bought some last week to make vanilla extract.
And so I got started on my vanilla bean cupcakes with fresh vanilla pods!
Though the process, of mixing the batter is a bit time
consuming than usual. I promise the end result is worth the few extra steps.
The baked cupcakes were so fluffy like a cloud! They were so moist and soft,
you could actually see little small black specks of vanilla in the cupcakes. My
friend and her hubby loved these cupcakes!
For the frosting, I used block cream cheese, tinted with
blue food colouring. I was actually going for a light blue colour, but since
the cream cheese was “cream” in colour to begin with, the frosting just kept
getting greener as I kept adding blue colouring! Sigh! Anyways maybe next time
I will try some buttercream frosting.
I love those pretty pink flowers on top of the cream cheese.
I searched all over Singapore, and got them from a baking goods store in
Geylang, along with the pretty blue cupcake cases.
Vanilla Bean Cupcakes
Ingredients:
3 cups - cake flour
1 tbsp. - baking powder
½ tsp. - salt
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
16 tbsp. - unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups - sugar
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1¼ cups - buttermilk, at room temperature
1 tbsp. - vanilla extract
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pans with
paper liners. Set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine the cake flour, baking
powder and salt. Whisk together and set aside.
- Add the butter to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with
the paddle attachment.
- Scrape the vanilla bean seeds into the bowl of the mixer
with the butter and discard the pod (or reserve for another use.)
- Beat on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, until light and
creamy in color. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for one more
minute.
- Add the sugar to the butter mixture, ¼ cup at a time, beating
1 minute after each addition.
- Mix in the eggs one at a time until incorporated.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition.
- Combine the buttermilk and the vanilla extract in a liquid
measuring cup.
- With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients
alternately with the wet ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry
ingredients and mixing just until incorporated.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix for 15 seconds
longer.
- Divide the batter between the prepared paper liners, filling
each about 2/3 of the way full (you will likely have batter left over after
filling 24 wells.)
- Bake 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the
center comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a
cooling rack to cool completely.
- Replace paper liners and bake remaining batter if desired.
Frost cooled cupcakes as desired.
- Yield: approximately 30 cupcakes
