Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

What happens when you're laying around on a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do but relax? Aside from laundry (there's ALWAYS laundry), you start thinking about cupcakes. You start thinking that you could tackle something time consuming, something above and beyond standard cupcakes.

You don't think about things like that? I do.

I started browsing around Pinterest, looking at all sorts of fun cupcakes ideas. I was going to do something with fondant decorations, but I hate fondant. It can be a pain to work with and it just tastes nasty. If you can jazz up a cupcake with just frosting, or edible decorations that actually taste good, then definitely go for that. I knew I needed a great vanilla cupcake recipe. I think, before today, I have made vanilla cupcakes maybe once. I am not a vanilla person. Plain Jane vanilla does nothing for me, but to play around with the ideas I had found, vanilla was what I needed. The recipe I used was great! It will be my go-to vanilla recipe from now on.

So what can you do with Plain Jane vanilla cupcakes? Well for starters, make them vanilla bean. If it's going to be vanilla it better be vanilla bean. You can use actual vanilla beans or some vanilla bean paste; I used the paste. With all the little details I was going to be working in, scraping out  vanilla bean was something I didn't want to have to add to my to-do list. Then, you can add fun colors or flavors to the frosting. And then, find some yummy edible decorations that are cute and impressive. And then, put them all together and eat them. Don't forget to text pictures of them to your fiancé while he's at work too...

This is what you can do with vanilla bean cupcakes.
 

Despicable Me is one of our favorite animated movies. The minions may in fact be one of my favorite animated characters of all time. If you can't find Twinkies for these cupcakes (I almost couldn't), you could also use Milano cookies. And for the eyes, if you use white Smarties, be prepared that there are only 2-3 white Smarties per roll, so I had to open 16, yes 16, rolls to get enough whites for the eyes. I used black decorating gel, but you could use black icing, which I would use if I make these again. Also, for the balloon cupcakes, tying tiny pieces of a ribbon is a real pain in the....

Anyways, let's get to the vanilla bean cake recipe and then I'll explain what to do after for each cupcake.

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes
from Eats Well With Others
These make a little more than 24

3 cups cake flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
5 large eggs, room temperature
1 and 1/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1 tbsp. vanilla bean paste

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
5-6 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tbsp. vanilla bean paste
a few tablespoons heavy cream or milk (I case you need it to think out the frosting)

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line 2 cupcakes tins.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a glass measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk and vanilla bean paste.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time to the butter mix. Scrape down the sides as needed, beating after each addition.
4. Add the flour mix to the butter mix, alternating with the buttermilk. Start and end with the flour mix. Beat until just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat another 10 seconds.
5. Use an ice cream scoop and scoop into cupcake liners, filling half way. Bake 18-22 minutes. Let cool for about 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack and let completely cool.
6. For the frosting, beat the butter until smooth. Add the powdered sugar, one cup at a time. I added 4 cups, then added the vanilla bean paste (and flavoring if using). I added in about 3 tablespoons of heavy cream and beat. Then, I added one more cup of sugar. For the consistency I wanted, I ended up adding about another 1/4 cup of heavy cream. Play around with it until you get it the way you want it.
7. Frost your cakes and enjoy!

Can you see the vanilla bean flecks?

Ok, let's start with the Minion Cupcakes. I used half the frosting for this, because I made two kinds of cupcakes, but you can make a whole batch following the same instructions, just double everything.

You will need:

Vanilla cupcakes
Vanilla frosting
Blue food coloring gel
6 Twinkies
24 white Smarties candies
black icing gel or black icing

Beat a few drops of the blue food coloring gel into your frosting to get it the shade you like. Frost your cupcakes. I kept my frosting one level and didn't do a nice pretty mound.

I didn't take step-by-step decorating pictures so I'll describe it best I can. Cut your Twinkies in half. I made two large dabs of black gel, and then places the Smarties on top, squishing the gel so it made the rim for the glasses of the minion. Then I just made the mouth, earpiece of the glasses, the pupils, and hair with the gel. Then I stuck them on the cakes.

Building an army...

"Papoy"

Now for the balloon cakes. Mine have bubblegum flavored frosting on them. I use flavored candy oils when I flavor my frosting if I don't use natural ingredients. A 1/4 teaspoon goes a long way when using oils.

You will need:

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes
Vanilla Bean frosting
1/4 tsp. flavoring oil (I used bubblegum)
Rainbow sprinkles
Dum Dum lollipops
Ribbon for bows

1. Beat the flavoring oil into your frosting and frost cupcakes. Pour on some sprinkles.
2. Tie a small piece of ribbon in a bow around an unwrapped Dum Dum lollipop. Stick it into a cupcake. Unwrap 2 more lollipops and place behind the first one, making it look like a group of balloons.

This one's pretty simple.