September 21, 2008

I Miss You Cupcake

I’ve previously extolled the virtues of real vanilla beans in posts about Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, Vanilla Cashew Sorbet and Vanilla Bean Hot Chocolate. If you’ve never used real vanilla beans and have instead relied on artificial extract you really don’t know what you’re missing. The flavour is completely different. The only problem is that once you get a taste of what real vanilla beans add to desserts you’ll never want to live without them. Like with these cupcakes, once they’re gone, you’ll miss them.


Amy Sedaris’ Vanilla Cupcakes**


1½ sticks unsalted butter
1¾ cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 vanilla bean

½ teaspoon salt
2½ teaspoons baking powder
2½ cups flour
1¼ cups milk

Put a pot on medium heat and pour in the milk. Cut open your vanilla bean, scrape the seeds into the pot and add the beans. Bring milk to a boil, remove from heat, cover and let stand for one hour. Remove the vanilla stalks and save them for another use, (like making vanilla sugar).

Preheat over to 375 degrees. Adjust oven rack to middle position. Line standard muffin tin with paper or foil liners.

In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, salt and baking powder. Add flour in 3 batches, alternating with milk. Beat at low speed for 30 seconds or until mixture is smooth and satiny.

Divide batter evenly among cups. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until tops are pale gold and toothpick or skewer inserted into center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 45 minutes or until at room temperature.

Makes 1 dozen large cupcakes.


**I modified the recipe to be made with a real vanilla bean instead of extract. If you want to use extract, just add 2 tsp vanilla extract to the batter after the eggs and ignore the part about heating the milk. I opted to use a simple vanilla buttercream icing, (the recipe for which I cannot currently locate…) to top the cupcakes, but feel free to use whatever you like.


As luck would have it, this month's Sugar High Friday theme is also cupcakes. Fanny of Foodbeam is on a quest to prove that cupcakes can be as tasty as they look. These cupcakes are certainly proof of that. If you're missing cupcakes too and want to see a whole lot more of them, just hop on over to Fanny's site around the end of the month.

18 comments:

Manggy said...

Hey, you could enter these in Sugar High Friday! How did you find the cupcakes? I haven't yet peeked in Amy Sedaris's book ("I Like You", right?)

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

CookieBakerLynn gave me some vanilla beans from saffron.com and now there is no going back. It's pretty affordable there. Beautiful cupcakes.

Peabody said...

Well, since you didn't send me any, I can't miss them. ;) I will just have to imagine.

Anonymous said...

I love looking through Amy Sedaris' book (I got it as gift) but never attempted one of the recipes. Looks like they work well!

Anita said...

Amy Sedaris' cupcake recipe is awesome - and you're totally doing it justice! I miss them already looking at them!

Clumbsy Cookie said...

I allready missing those cupcakes and I haven't even tasted them! That's how good they must be!

kat said...

Oh I know what you mean about using a vanilla bean it really jut makes the flavor sing

Deborah said...

I really need to order some vanilla beans online, because really - the price in the grocery store is horrible. But I'm sure with one bite of these cupcakes, I'd forget about the cost!

Maria said...

I love using real vanilla beans! Ebay has great bargains too! Your cupcakes look great!

Patricia Scarpin said...

Bri, I have heard a lot about Amy Sedaris' recipes but haven't tried any yet. These look amazing!
I agree with you about the vanilla thing - once you taste the real vanilla...

Susan @ SGCC said...

Oh, yeah! There's nothing like real vanilla, especially vanilla beans.

Those cupcakes look so pretty! This is my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe, bar none!

Anonymous said...

Yum - I absolutely love using vanilla beans. These cupcakes are gorgeous. :)

Esi said...

I just got my vanilla in the mail last week. I think I will have to try this recipe out!

Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) said...

Agreed -- there is nothing like the taste of fresh vanilla beans.

Jenny said...

Looks great. My boys are vanilla fanatics! I know they'd go crazy for these cute cakes!

RecipeGirl said...

I haven't seen AS' cookbook yet. These look YUM-MY. I too am a big fan of the vanilla bean. I like to scrape one into my choc. chip cookies!

Aimée said...

Spotted this in the SHF round-up. Dazzling! My 'Best Cupcake in Montreal" vote was a vanilla cupcake. Nothing beats the real deal.

spidercamp said...

Ji! Just wanted to let you know something has gone horribly wrong with your RSS feed. Not that I don't love this entry, but I don't need to get an update about it every single day, ha.

If I knew anything at all about RSS, I would be more help... but figured I should at least et you know about the problem. Good luck!