Ok I’ll be honest. I hate cupcakes. Let me correct that. I love cupcakes, they just always happen to be spoiled by ludicrous amounts of frosting. And I seriously don’t get why people love frosting……it’s so freaking sweet and excessive! And that, coming from me, is saying something, because I literally eat sugar cubes. But I just don’t understand how this cupcake frenzy we’re in is the perfect excuse to order a huge dollop of butter and sugar on top of a miserable bit of cake.
That being said though….cupcakes are incredibly cute and fun to make…they’re basically a pastry canvas in which you can go totally crazy decorating, and it’s not the serious undertaking of making say, a wedding cake…it’s just a teeny tiny cake which you can mess up without any serious consequences. The color, shape and flavor of the toppings are endless! So I guess in that part I can understand and get on board the cupcake mania. But since I didn’t want to go all out and make a huge mess of my kitchen (because everyone who decorates cakes know how many freaking utensils and surfaces get covered in sticky sugary stuff) I made a simple vanilla cupcake with buttercream frosting recipe! They actually took about an hour and a half all in all to make! Read more for the recipe.
Vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting
The recipe is from BBC food, the link is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cupcakes_93722
I used the same recipe, with the following slight ingredient modifications:
- 110g/4oz butter, softened
- 110g/4oz caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 110g/4oz flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp milk
- For the buttercream icing
- 140g/5oz butter, softened
- 280g/10oz icing sugar
- 3 tbsp milk
- a few drops food colouring
- Directions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.
- Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale. Beat in the eggs a little at a time and stir in the vanilla extract. Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon, adding a little milk until the mixture is of a dropping consistency. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.
- Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack
- For the buttercream icing, beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth, then add the remaining icing sugar with one tablespoon of the milk, adding more milk if necessary, until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Add the food coloring and mix until well combined. Spoon the icing into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe the icing using a spiraling motion onto the cup cakes in a large swirl. (Or alternately, use a flower shaped nozzle and pipe flowers all over the surface; it looks lovely and uses way less frosting!)
petitedecadence.com 
I totally agree about the frosting onslaught! Especially if it’s gross, grainy, flavorless grocery-store frosting. The worse the frosting tastes, the more of it there seems to be. Your cupcakes look perfectly frosted though!