The second instalment of Operation Buttercream: we hunt for the perfect vanilla cupcake (think Victoria sponge), research colour and fancier flowers and get some decisions from the bride & groom.

The Perfect Vanilla Cupcake

I’m using vanilla cupcakes as a base for the Strawberry Champagne Cupcakes and the White Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes. I want a recipe that uses ordinary ingredients – ordinary flour, buttermilk, yoghurt, heavy cream, applesauce etc. The cupcakes should keep easily 3 to 4 days, being moist and have an even crumb. Extensive research and a couple of test bakes later – I’ve found it. Only nine ingredients but with more elaborate preparation requirements, worth it.

Baking under exam conditions, I was reminded that my oven bakes hot. I’m using foil lined cupcake cases and this also concentrates heat. I used the suggested oven temperature and that resulted in the cupcakes on the right hand side of the photo. If the oven is too hot, the outside of the cupcake bakes more quickly and forces the batter in the centre up into a dome. Second test bake I reduced the oven temperature to 170C and got the smooth surface on the left.

Recipe – Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 150 grams plain flour (not self rising)
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder 
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 eggs medium to large
• 150 g caster sugar (or granulated)
• 60g unsalted butter cut into cubes, can be straight from the refrigerator
• 125 ml full fat milk
• 2 tsp top quality vanilla extract
• 1.5 tsp vegetable oil 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (160°C fan) for 20 minutes before starting the batter. Place shelf in the middle of the oven.
2. Place cupcake liners in a standard muffin tin. (makes 12)
3.  Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
4. Heat the milk and butter until the butter is just melted. I do this in a saucepan because it then stays warm. You can also do this in a heatproof bowl in the microwave. If using the microwave, start with 1 minute and then 15 second bursts, you don’t want the milk to boil.
5. Beat the eggs on medium high speed for 30 seconds. Keep the mixer going, add the sugar over another 30 seconds. Turn speed up to high (I used 8 on my KitchenAid) and then beat the eggs and sugar for 6 minutes. It won’t turn into meringue but it will increase in volume and lighten in colour.
6. Incorporate the dry ingredients. After the eggs and sugar are whipped, scatter 1/2 of the flour mixture across surface, then beat on low speed very briefly, no more than 10 seconds. Stop, incorporate the remaining ingredients in the same way. Take a look at the batter, beat only until you can’t see any flour. Don’t beat out all the air you just beat into the eggs & sugar.
7. Pour the still warm milk & butter into the empty flour bowl. Add a generous ladle of batter to the mixture and hand whisk until smooth. This ‘tempers’ the warm milk and butter and means your butter won’t ‘curdle’ (split). Needs to be whisked until smooth and foamy.
8. Turn your stand mixer onto it’s lowest speed and slowly pour the tempered milk and butter in. Beat for 15 seconds. Turn the mixer off. Scrape down the sides and the base, the batter should be very smooth.
9. I pipe batter into the cases. This needs my largest blue piping bags but it reduces waste and gives more control over filling. If you do by hand, use an ice cream trigger scoop. Fill the cases to about 2/3 full. Don’t overfill, you get convex surfaces.
10. Place on the middle rack of the oven; bake for 20 minutes. Check temperature of a cupcake in the centre of the tin, should be above 95 degrees. Cupcakes will be golden and your thermometer will come out clean.

Colour and Fancier Flowers

I will never be a professional standard ‘cupcake decorator’ but am moving on from the basics. A couple of things I was looking for in this next decorating test batch; whiter buttercream, sharper edges on the flowers and getting colour effects with piping. I also want to buttercream to dry out a bit as it’s piped for longevity. Back to the internet we went.

Natural buttercream icing is butter, icing sugar, vanilla and just enough water to make it firm yet pipable. It tastes great but it’s naturally pale yellow rather than white. Here’s a video on making the buttercream wedding white. Essentially you dye it white. I tried two methods, white titanium powder added to the icing sugar and white gel professional standard food colouring. The gel food colouring produced better results and gave me sharper edges on the piped flowers, so we’re sticking with that method for the white icing. The pure white icing is for the carrot cake cupcakes.

Gaining confidence from making icing white and my ease of piping the large roses – time to add some colour. There is a long video from Cornel on colours and piping bags. There are a number of colours and techniques I didn’t need but I watched it through and made pages of notes. There are other techniques to get 2 different colours in the piping bag but the method of putting a stripe of the contrast colour along the seam of the piping bag and filling the rest with the main colour seems intuitively correct and simple to me. It’s a bit difficult to see but the top left cupcake with the green edge is my favourite. I piped the centre rosebud in pure white then all of the rose petals with the green edge.

Decisions from Bride & Groom

A couple of decisions I was looking for; shape and design of the cupcake cases, accent colours based on the bride’s flowers and attendants gowns and sign off on the first two decorating designs. I’m not going to share those yet – will keep you in suspense until the wedding.

Notes on this test bake

• I’ve got some help lined up for the big event – so for washing up, making basics, filling piping bags, etc. But it will be good to have a lot of certain things:
  – piping bags both for the cupcakes and of various strengths for the icing, I can see going through 50 or so with ease,
  – palette knives, straight and pointed. Probably 10 straight ones and 3 pointed ones. Having more will reduce the temptation to wipe and re-use, which creates risk for colour pollution, it would be easy to ruin a large batch of white with a little bit of blue or green,
  – piping tips, Wilton 104 and leaf tips
  – will investigate Russian piping tips, I think may work very well for the white chocolate ganache.

Think pink for the next instalment. And yes, my hands are sore.