First Succesful Venture

Well hello again! Due to the nastiness that is brewing outside of my office window I've decided to brighten up my day (and yours obviously) with another post! At work on Monday I had cupcakes on the brain and decided that it was time to bake a classic vanilla cupcake. Now when I think vanilla cupcakes I instantly think back to my first year at UVa and my absolutely wonderful and amazing great grandbig Christina. Christina is phenomenal at just about everything, but what will always be ingrained in my mind is her uncanny ability to always produce AMAZING vanilla cupcakes. Not only did they always taste superb, but they also were always iced so perfectly that I knew she was the person to go to for advice. I sent her a facebook message last week and boy did she deliver! I now have two new blogs to follow and countless suggestions from her for different cake recipes to try (including her vanilla cake recipe that she uses)!!

My only obstacle to overcome was coming up with an icing that would do the cakes justice. So I started thinking, and the idea almost instantly dawned on me. My friend Sabrina had visited me way back when the summer before my senior year of high school, and we had decided to have a crafty day where we designed our own aprons and baked cupcakes. We both decided that we would try out the vanilla cupcake recipe from Magnolia Bakery (New York bakery famous for their cupcakes...check out their website by clicking on the name if you want to make your mouth water). The products of our day are below and needless to say the cupcakes were yummy BUT the ICING was FANTASTIC. So it was settled...I would use Christina's cake recipe and Magnolia's icing (with a few tweaks).

I stopped by Publix (the grocery store that I miss terribly while at school) on my way home from work to get a few extra ingredients (I am starting to hoard bags of confectioner's sugar...), and then rushed home ready to bake. Since my little brother (ok younger brother...the kid is a beast who is just about 15 and already taller than me so it's just something I'll have to come to terms with) had a baseball game that night we were supposed to eat dinner early. Unfortunately that did not mesh well with my baking plans so while the rest of my family sat down to eat (minus my older brother who wasn't home from work yet), I was rushing to bust out the batter and get the cupcakes in the oven (plus I was SO excited to use the gingham print cupcake liners that I had bought the week before). This time around I was probably too cautious with the amount of batter I put in for each cupcake because while none of them overflowed there were several that fell below the lining (which can be fixed with icing but still wasn't perfect).

It's also important to mention that the entire time I was baking the UVa baseball team was playing their third super regional game in a 3 game series against UC Irvine to determine which team would advance to the College World Series. In a nail biter finish with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning short stop Chris Taylor hit the single that drove in the tying and winning runs for UVa! Stay tuned for updates from Omaha as the Cavaliers take on the CWS (they'll be playing Cal first). After celebrating the win with Gus (he was fairly confused but enjoyed the playtime), I started on the icing. The nice thing about the Magnolia Vanilla Buttercream is that it's a simple icing and is easy to tweak to your liking. I mainly eyeballed the ingredients and took it from there. After adding some food coloring (I figured purple was the best color because it complemented the three colors of cupcakes liners), the cupcakes were ready to be iced! See below for how they turned out!

While I thought the snickerdoodle cupcakes had been a success (my mom LOVED them), the vanilla cupcakes were definitely a big hit with everyone. Chris (my little bro) said that they were the best cupcakes he had ever had...eep how can I top myself now?!? Stay tuned for a Gus themed post in the near future (probably after obedience class on Friday), and be on the lookout for my post detailing my attempts to make Chris High Hats for his 15th birthday! Oh and look...the sun just came out!