Cupcake Crazy!

I have been getting very interested in making cupcakes lately. I helped Mom and Dad make 5 or 6 different batches of gourmet cupcakes for Baby V's 1st birthday. They were amazing and fun to make, but I knew I could improve them if I practiced.

I made Vanilla cupcakes for my next batch. I tried to follow the recipe exactly. The cupcakes were yummy (the butter-cream frosting was not as smooth as it looks in the Cupcake Book) but they were like eating big sweet cornbread cupcakes. The texture wasn't dreamy. I did not feel like I was eating dessert made by angels. They were pretty, though. Here are a few pictures.

I was disappointed when the texture of these were so bread-y because my gut wanted to make them with cake flour so they'd be light and airy and moist. Like cake. So I made another batch. I used the White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcake recipe, leaving the white chocolate morsels out of the batch and putting vanilla extract in. (Use 2 tsp. of vanilla extract. Not 1 tsp). These were much better than the above batch, but still not moist enough. Next time, I would use a mix with cake flour and another egg, or a bit of oil or applesauce to give it moisture.