Beautiful Vanilla Cupcakes

Beautiful Vanilla Cupcakes

When I was a young girl in high school I had to do home economics for about three or four years and during that whole period my teacher never once gave me encouragement to me for my cooking and even said that cooking was not my niche.  She said I will never be a cook and said I should stick to dancing or running (despite my academic ability - all white girls school), but when I tasted my cupcakes I felt so proud of myself and I just felt like finding her and shoving thse beauties in her ugly face.  She was wrong and every time I wear my 'midnight' apron and cook something so pleasurable I get so emotional because like my grandma I am a natural cook and I know she is looking down and thinking that's my Saffy. :)

Natural Cook

I added a few extra ingredients to make these cupcakes special and unique.  They were an absolute hit with everyone who tried them and to be honest they are the best cupcakes I have ever tasted in my life shortly followed by Starbuck's 'Skinny Apricot and Peach Cupcakes).  Also these were my first ever cupcakes so now it has been confirmed that I have the chef's hands which Gran Gran had many tricks and gifts I will have to keep secret and pass only through my own blood line.  It's a Caribbean ting and ting - say something!

Secrets:

When I first did this I made a sweet buttercream icing which made it taste very sugary and did not really enhance the flavour, so the next time I made a savoury buttercream and I actually improved the cupcakes. I also followed Pascale and made a syrup, I adapted her syrup recipe and technique.  The first time I made the cupcakes the syrup was simple but made the cake moist, fragrant and described by a few as "divine" (yay!).  The second time however I was a bit creative and my cupcakes got people questioning what was in it. They were excited, surprised and were left begging for more.

This recipe was adapted from Lorraine Pascale's 'Baking Made Easy' (Harper Collin's Publisher's, 2011)

Ingredients:

200g butter, 200g castor sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 4 eggs, 200g plain flour, 2 tsps salt, 3 tsps baking powder, 2 tsps water, 1 tsp milk,

Method:

1. Cream together butter and castor sugar until fluffy.  MAKE SURE THIS IS FLUFFY!
2. Add vanilla, and eggs one at a time beating as you go.
3. If curdled add flour. BEAT UNTIL SMOOTH!
4. Add flour, salt, baking powder and mix together until combined.
5. Loosen with some water or milk.
6. Heat oven 160 degrees C/ 315 degrees F.
7. Put mixture in 12 cupcake cases which should be in a 12 cupcake muffin tin.
8. Don't be stingy with your cupcakes unless you are selling them for a low price. Fill up the cases 3/4 of the way.
9. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.