I came up with this recipe for O.G.’s birthday. Not only did I use a hefty amount of vanilla, but also vanilla sea salt AND even vanilla milk. The Kid LOVES this flavored organic milk. He can’t get enough so I pack it in his lunch everyday. Wait til he finds out I snagged the last one for this recipe. Oops.
I think I accomplished the vanilla-ness of these cupcakes TO THE EXTREME. Vanilla Ice would be proud.
ingredients:
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter
1-3/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
2-1/4 cups cake flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla sea salt
1 cup VANILLA milk
1 Tablespoon vanilla
vanilla buttercream
vanilla sea salt (for sprinkling)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and seasalt in a bowl. Set aside. Now here’s the thing. I know not everyone has vanilla seasalt, seeing as how this salt cost me $12 for 2 freakin’ ounces. So regular old seasalt will do ok. Don’t sweat it.
Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Carefully add the eggs one at a time until incorporated, then add the vanilla.
Now alternate milk with the dry ingredients until combined. This flavored organic milk is fantastic but it does scare me that they sell it on the shelves NOT REFRIGERATED. Supermarkets: you are just playing with my food bacteria paranoia.
Spoon the batter into prepped liners, bake 15-17 minutes depending on your oven. Let cool on a wire rack.
I like to top these with a simple vanilla buttercream and a sprinkling of vanilla sea salt. Oh yeah, a little sugared heart hanging off the edge of the cup doesn’t hurt either.
Kid's lunches, simple dinners and a whole lot of geeky baking.
Our son loves poppyseed muffins. Do you think adding poppy seeds to this recipe be ok?
So hungry…must settle for a PB&J sandwich and coffee.
@xtena No. Don’t do that. I’ll send you a recipe.
These look great! And the good thing about the ultra pasteurized milk is that it is already at room temperature.
Yummy!! I miss you for so many reasons at work but, I especially miss all the treats we used to sample! I’ll have to try to make these myself
)
Where on earth do you get those adorable dishes?!?
I definitely want to try these for my son’s birthday! They look so yummy! What is the recipe for the frosting you used?
@Tina: Most of my dishes I get from Fishs Eddy in New York.
do you think using the whole cornstarch + all purpose flour as a substitution for the cake flour would work?
What is 1-1/2 sticks of butter in cups? Sorry, crazy Canadian here.
@jami 3/4 cup is 1-1/2 sticks of butter.
@sophsoph05 Sure, I’ve done that when I’ve run out of cake flour – the difference is barely noticeable.
Do I need to use sea salt? Can’t I just use kosher table salt?
@Meg
Sure, kosher salt is fine.
Do you think one could make vanilla sea salt the same way you make vanilla sugar (stick a vanilla bean in some fleur de sel, or what-have-you)?
What does the vanilla salt do??? i’ve never heard of putting any kind of salt in a cake