vanilla cupcakes

Yesterday was my good friend Danielle's birthday, so baking was obviously in store.  Normally I default to brownies for friend's birthdays, but this time I wanted to try something different, so I opted for cupcakes.

When it comes to baking, I think the end product is almost entirely reliant upon picking out a good recipe, because the rest is just about following instructions. But choosing a good recipe can be a difficult task.  In this case, I initially set out to recreate Magnolia's cupcakes (we had them a couple weeks ago at work and they were so good I continued to eat the stale ones that were leftover last week).  Surprisingly (or not), Magnolia has three cookbooks sharing the bakery owner's famous recipes, and the second one, More from Magnolia contains the recipe for vanilla cupcakes. But it calls for an alarming amount of sugar and butter; and after reading a lot of the negative reviews on Food Network ("SO OVERATED!!!!!!!"; "EXTREMELY sweet"; "spongy and dried out quickly") I started second-guessing it.

So I turned to JoyofBaking.com, one of my go-to sites for cakes, quick breads, and bars.  It's not the most sophisticated website, and the ads are pretty annoying, but they have consistently good, very manageable recipes and a nice little introduction explaining the history and summary of each offering.

Like many of its recipes, JoyofBaking's vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting requires few ingredients and the steps are simple and straightforward.  (In fact, this recipe is quite similar to the Magnolia recipe, but with less butter and sugar.)

I used a mini muffin pan for the bite-size variety (...and because that's the only size pan I have).  The recipe yielded almost exactly 24 mini cupcakes.

Pre-oven

The cupcakes browned at the edges after about 18 minutes.  (Please excuse the imperfect ones in this batch.)

Baking complete

The cake had a nice flavor and a decent texture: not too dry, not too spongy.  The frosting, on the other hand, turned out to be too sugary, though it had a nice, whipped consistency.  (From all of the cupcake reviews and "best of" lists, I gather it's really difficult to nail down a good vanilla frosting.)

Vanilla buttercream frosting

Though I hope to one day master the art of piping icing, I like the homemade look on cupcakes.  So I stuck to my tried-and-true method of massaging it around into dips and waves with a butter knife.  My mom instilled in me a suspicion towards food coloring, so I left these au natural and decided to accessorize instead.  I love making and buying things for Danielle because she's the girliest person I know, and doing such allows me to unleash my inner girly side.  So I went crazy with the pink sugar sprinkles and rainbow snowflakes (which, mind you, do contain food coloring...but it feels less deliberate this way).

Girlified

Probably not the best vanilla cupcake recipe out there, but it's a good, traditional, homemade one (and anyway they photograph nicely). Click here for the full recipe.  And please, if you have a great vanilla cupcake recipe, please share!

Best New York Cupcakes from Serious Eats

Serious Eats recently compiled a list of NY's best cupcakes. And I never tire of "Best of" lists, so I just have to share! Click here for the slideshow.

Perfectly iced cupcakes from Tribeca Treats

Although I can't say I tried any of the cupcakes in the Top 12, I'm inclined to trust their judgment, or at least respect the list, because Serious Eats employed various judges, drew from a large indiscriminate pool of bakeries, lists their criteria, and admits to keeping track of everything in an excel sheet.  (This makes New York Magazine's list from last year, judged by the pastry chef of Gramercy Tavern, seem highly subjective in comparison.)

I think I just found my New Year's resolution for 2011 - a cupcake for every month!

Top NYC Cupcakes

Grub Street, New York Magazine's food blog, just recently posted an amazing slide show of the best of NYC cupcakes...at least according to Gramercy Tavern's all-star pastry chef, Nancy Olsen:

"Fifteen bakeries — from Brooklyn’s Baked to Two Little Red Hens uptown — dropped off more than 75 cupcakes to New York Magazine headquarters. With milk shots to cleanse the palate, Olson graded their versions of chocolate, vanilla, and everything in between on a ten-point system for taste, five for presentation, and five awarded at her discretion.

If this could somehow be a full-time job, and if such a job did not forge a direct path towards diabetes and morbid obesity, I would be first in line. I guess it's probably best that the ranking is in Olsen's hands--anyone who contributes something as wonderful-sounding as a Crunchy Milk Chocolate–Peanut butter layer cake to the world only deserves the very best.

But I digress. Olsen ranks the top 11 (why 11 and not 10, I'm not so sure) NYC cupcakes. She seems pretty discerning and her descriptions are honest when they need to be (she found many of the cupcakes much too dry). But ultimately, I think the pictures speak for themselves. #5, #4, and #2 top my "to try" list (especially #4--they're only $2 each!). I mean...just look at this picture, I almost don't have to eat it to know that this is probably the best cupcake in the city:
The only comment that made me second-guess Olsen's judgment was her favorable review of Batch's odd selection of cupcakes--"carrot-salted caramel" and "bacon caramel" are pairings which, in themselves sound like oxymorons, and in the context of "cupcakes," well, that just seems downright scary. I guess I can't knock it until I try it. Too bad I'm off pork.

I almost surprise myself to say that I've only ever tried one cupcake producer from this list: Magnolia, of course because I would feel so "out of touch" if I hadn't. From what I remember, the chocolate icing did release a flood of endorphins, but the cake part itself was lackluster. I'm not so sure it lives up to all that hype. I've also tried Crumbs, but that's like saying I've been to Sbarro if this were a pizza competition (ok, maybe that's a little harsh). Gus is a fan of Billy's Bakery and recently became enraptured by Sweet Revenge's red velvet cupcake. Apparently Sugar Sweet Sunshine tops many New Yorker's lists.

As someone who likes to hold strong opinions about food, I just know that I have a lot of catching up to do.