If you’re like me, baking cupcakes can be an anxiety inducing affair. I never know if my cupcakes are going to become round mounds of cakey goodness, or fall flat and sulk in their little paper liners. Frosting can only fix so much before you end up with a mound of whipped sugar that’s taller than your cupcake! Here’s an amazing Vanilla Bean Buttercream Dream Frosting by way of the lovely Kelly Neil, a quick and easy demo for creating perfectly mounded cupcakes every time, and Ina Garten’s Coconut Cupcake Recipe – wowza!
Perfect Buttercream Frosting
- 2 cups unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
- 1 lb icing sugar, sifted
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/8 tsp salt
Mix all ingredients, but take care to not over mix. For a firmer texture you may use shortening instead of butter.
Here are some of our other favorite Frosting recipes!
Cake Batter Frosting
Cake Batter Frosting – frosting that tastes like cake batter and is simple to make! Add some sprinkles and call it a day!
- butter
- powdered sugar
- milk
- extract
In a large bowl, add in the butter, cake mix, powdered sugar, and milk. Mix on medium until incorporated. Turn mixer on high and beat for another 1 – 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the frosting into a disposable bag fitted with a 1M tip. Pipe swirls.
Vanilla Cupcakes + Sour Cream Chocolate Ganache Frosting
Remember those days when we happily nibbled on vanilla cupcakes and overly sweet chocolate frosting, not because they were even that good, but because that’s all we knew. The only difference is this time it’s going to taste good. I mean so good, you’re going to find yourself having to make another batch cause you somehow ate a dozen cupcakes in the span of writing a short paragraph.
Sour Cream Chocolate Ganache Frosting
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups powdered sugar (1 cup granulated sugar + 1 cup cornstarch)
Vanilla Cupcake
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup flour, sieved
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- extra chocolate chips for garnish
Make The Frosting First
The first step is to make powdered sugar. In a food processor, pulse together equal parts of granulated sugar and cornstarch. Sift it and reserve in a bowl. If you have store-bought powder/confectioner’s/icing sugar, you can use that also. In a small bowl, melt together the chocolate and the butter. You can do this in a double boiler or in the microwave at 30 second intervals. Add the chocolate mixture to a large bowl and mix in the sour cream and salt. Slowly add in the powdered sugar while beating with a hand mixer. Transfer frosting to a piping bag and chill it in the fridge.
Now Let’s Make The Cupcakes
Cream together the butter and the sugar with a hand mixer until it becomes pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Try not to overmix it because that’ll cause the cupcakes to become tight and dense. Divide the batter into a dozen cupcake molds. I used white cupcake baking liners and sprayed the insides with vegetable oil. Fill each cup 3/4 of the way up. Bake in a 350F degree oven for 18-20 minutes. Check after 16 minutes. Once they’ve cooled for 15 minutes, frost and garnish with chocolate chips.
Chocolate Cupcakes With Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting
I recently bought a yummy natural raspberry extract, and decided to use it for a raspberry frosting. And what goes really well with raspberries? Chocolate. And I hadn’t baked cupcakes in a while, so I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with raspberry cream cheese frosting. I also love brown and pink colors together.
The recipe is from Hummingbird Bakery, but I added a few chocolate chips to the batter and the raspberry extract to the frosting. And the result was really delicious.
Cupcake Ingredients
- 100g flour
- 20g cocoa powder
- 140g cane sugar
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- A pinch of salt
- 40 g unsalted butter must be soft
- 1,5 dl milk
- 1 egg
- 1 vanilla pod
- 60 g dark chocolate, chopped
Frosting Ingredients
- 300 g of icing sugar
- 50 g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 125 g Philadelphia, cold
- 2 teaspoons of raspberry extract ( I used one from Dr. Oetker)
- red food coloring
Preheat oven to 170 º C. Flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and butter mixed together in a bowl until well mixed together, and the texture is “sand”. Slowly add half of the milk with stirring. In another bowl, beat the egg and remaining milk. While stirring pour the egg mixture slowly into the flour mixture. Beat until dough is uniform and fine. Fold in the chopped chocolate with a spoon or spatula. Fill paper molds two-thirds with the batter and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. Remember to only fill the molds ⅔ up so there is room for dough rises when in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes. When the cupcakes are done allow to cool completely before decorating with frosting.
Frosting
Beat the icing sugar and butter together at mid speed until it is well blended. Turn to a low speed and add the cream cheese all at once, and whip until it is completely mixed. Turn up the speed again and continue to whip the frosting to a light and airy consistency. It may look a little funny right at the beginning, but don’t worry it will nice and shiny after a minute or so. Add extract and food coloring. Be careful not to use too much as the texture of the frosting will change very easily. Once you have the color and texture you like, fill a piping bag and decorate the cupcakes.
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Sheri Wetherell is the co-founder and CEO of Foodista.com, community-based recipe, cooking, and food news website. Check them out on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram.
