Cupcake Virgin - Pretty Real

Cupcake Virgin

1:15 PM


How on Earth I reached the age of 30, er I mean 29 and have never made cupcakes is beyond me. I'm probably the only female over 15 who hasn't. Nevertheless it's true. At least it was true until Genevieve's dedication luncheon. Despite my fear of baking, I couldn't help but try my hand at them...It was only a matter of time, given America's latest obsession with cupcakes. Since I am not a baker at heart and had zero experience I decided to amend a basic store bought cake mix and make the icing from scratch rather than make everything from scratch. I found a good recipe in "Women's World":

Perfect cake-mix cupcakes:
1 pkg cake mix such as classic vanilla or devil's food
1 cup buttermilk in place of the water called for in the package
Vegetable oil (the amount on the pkg)
4 eggs in place of the number called for on the package

  • Preheat oven to 350 F. Line muffin cups with paper liners. Prepare cake mix according to package directions in a large bowl, using the buttermilk instead of water, the oil, and the 4 eggs. Beat with an electric mixer until moistened, about 30 seconds. Increase the speed to high and beat until thick, 2 minutes longer.
  • Spoon half the batter into a large ziploc bag, press out the excess air and seal. Snip a 1/4" corner from the bag and fill the paper liners two thirds full. Repeat with the remaining batter. Bake until golden (if using a light colored cake mix) and a toothpick inserted comes out clean, 15-20 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the baking pan, place on a wire rack and allow to cool completely. Makes 24 cupcakes.
A few notes: This recipe is SUPER easy. If I can do it; anyone can! Secondly, I'm not sure why it calls for putting the batter in the ziploc bag half at a time. That was annoying. Next time I'll put all of the batter in at once. Lastly, I didn't want to waste money on a quart of buttermilk when I only needed a cup (and my mom insisted that I could make it with milk and vinegar). After googling it to make sure my mom wasn't making it up (why I doubt her I have no idea. She knows everything about homemade cooking.), I followed her advice and added a TBS of vinegar to a cup of milk and let it stand for 5 minutes).

For the icing, I wanted something creamy and sweet but not store bought. I used Magnolia's recipe. There are a few different versions of it online but I trust foodnetwork so I used theirs. Click here for recipe.

I added a few drops of food coloring (ok, I asked my little sister to do it for me) and voila! They came out perfectly. They were light, fluffy, and sweet! When my adorable nephew Luke tasted one, hugged my neck and said "Aunt Tiffany you're the best" I knew I'd accomplished my mission!


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2 comments

  1. Food Network is coming out with a new show called Cupcake Wars! I will definitely be Tivo-ing that. Your cupcakes look amazing by the way!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you!! I wanted to order decorations for them from that site you shared with us but of course I procrastinated so I didn't have time. I'll just have to make them again... ;)

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