take the cake!
I’m not much of a baker – at least of the finer crumb cakes. The pressure, oh, the pressure to make cute tasty cupcakes for an up coming 3 year old’s birthday.
The search was on – I made a few recipes – hands down and belly up -the best recipe is from Billy’s Bakery in New York City. He had done a demo back in 2006 on Martha Stewart so I’m a bit behind but better late than never.
Here is the recipe as I made it. Be sure to use cake flour – the first time I used pastry flour – not the same as cake flour. The pastry flour version did not have as fine a crumb. This recipe makes 30 (you can halve the recipe)
Billy’s Vanilla Vanilla Cupcakes
1 3/4 cups cake flour
1 1/4 cups flour, all-purpose
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup butter — 2 sticks, room temp soft, cut into small pieces
4 large eggs — room temp
1 cup whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pre-heat oven to 350F. Line cupcake pan with liners.
Combine dry ingredients in bowl of electric mixer. Add butter pieces, mixing until incorporated into the flour forming pieces no larger than grains of rice.
In another bowl, beat together eggs, milk and vanilla.
At medium speed, mix in wet ingredients in 3 parts. Scrape sides of bowl after each addition. Batter should be smooth. (I mixed by hand for one test batch and it worked out fine)
Use #20 scoop to fill cups or use a spoon to 2/3 full.
Bake 17-20 minutes. Rotate pans at 10-12 minutes. Cool on wire rack.
Frost with your favorite buttercream recipe.
Interesting to note that this method of mixing the butter with the dry ingredients and then adding the liquid reduces your chances of over mixing the batter resulting in a tough cake. The butter coats the flour preventing the gluten from forming.
