Tag Archives: vanilla

Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake

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I have brought buttermilk several times over the last month and have thrown it out unused, something I really don’t like doing. This time determined to use it before it expires, I found a great recipe in the Cooking Light Magazine (November 2008) for Vanilla Buttermilk Pound Cake.

The recipe makes two 8×4 loafs, which I iced with a lemon icing. Next time though I would either make a plain butter sugar glaze with the vanilla buttermilk loaf, or switch out the vanilla in the loaf for lemon. Also in my oven, it did not require the full hour of baking.

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Ingredients (Vanilla buttermilk pound cake)

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup of butter (softened)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 1/3 cups low-fat buttermilk

  • Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
  • Place the first 4 ingredients in a medium sized bowl and whisk. Put aside.
  • Place sugar and butter in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk to the sugar mixture in stages, beginning and ending with flour.
  • Spoon the mixture evenly into the two greased and lined loaf tins. Bake at 350 degrees F for 60 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  • Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from tins. Cool completely on a wire rack.

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Ingredients (Lemon Butter Icing)

1 Tbsp butter, melted
1 lemon (finely grated lemon peel + juice from one lemon)
1 1/2 cups icing sugar (confectionary sugar)

  • Place butter and lemon ingredients into a bowl
  • Add the icing sugar in stages, so you can ensure the thickness you want for your icing. Mix together with a knife until blended
  • Apply icing to the cooled loaves with a  knife
  • Serve 🙂

Preparations for Halloween

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Over the weekend we prepared for halloween. I finished Sean’s Ghost costume, made halloween cupcakes and we carved a pumpkin.

Sean’s Ghost Costume (minus the face paint)Thought it turned out well considering I had no pattern to use.

Halloween Cupcakes 

These are vanilla cupcakes from a previous blog, with a great vanilla butter cream frosting I found on food.com.

Carved Pumpkin

Never fail cupcakes

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I am still recovering at home from my sinus surgery. This week has been a little more painful than usual, which makes it a little hard to do all the things I wanted to accomplish this week. I have wanted to make updates to posts, with regards to craft projects and the new backyard project, but first I have to finish them somewhat to take photos. After all a photo speaks a thousand words and that is not happening this week unfortunately.

So in the meantime, its been a week or so since I posted recipes. I have recently been trying out some recipes for cupcakes – one specifically for my son’s 5th birthday. Cupcakes, I find a lot of fun as you you can experiment a lot with them and usually end up something all will like.

I have a never-fail recipe I use as a batter starter and from there I get creative. This recipe is very easy to double if you want more than 12 cupcakes.

Vanilla Cupcake Batter (from New Zealand Edmonds Cookbook)

125g butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup milk

Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs  one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift flour and baking powder together. Fold into creamed mixture. Stir in milk. Place 12 paper cupcake cups in a muffin tray. Spoon mixture into the paper cups. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 C) for 15 minutes or until the cakes spring back when lightly touched. Transfer to a cooling rack. When cool decorate as desired.

Chocolate cup cakes
Omit 2 Tbsp of flour. Replace with 2 Tbsp of cocoa (unsweetened).

Here are some of my creations using this batter.

Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Use the Vanilla Cupcake batter above. Once cupcakes have cooled, use a corer (like an apple corer) and take out the center. Fill the center with lemon curd. To make the Lemon cream cheese frosting:

Mix in a bowl, 2 Tbsp of melted butter, 1/4 cup cream cheese, 1 cup icing sugar (confectionary), 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind, 1 tsp lemon juice.

Frost the cupcake.

Dinosaur Cupcakes (my son’s 5th birthday party cupcakes)

For this recipe, I again used the vanilla cupcakes but I switched out the all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour and added 1 cup of milk chocolate chips. This made a chocolate chip cupcake.

 

From there I made vanilla frosting and sprinkled that with green sugar or chocolate frosting with hundred’s and thousands (colored sprinkles). I purchased little dinosaur cupcake toothpicks for decoration.

  

By the way, I loved this double cupcake tin from Crate and Barrel – it provides a way of carrying 24 cupcakes.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes

For this recipe, I used the Chocolate flavored cupcake batter above. I placed the batter into the cupcake cups and before baking pushed a mini Reeses peanut butter cup into the center, then spooned ~1 tsp of batter over the peanut butter cup. Bake following the directions above.

Frost with Peanut Butter Frosting. Freeze 12 mini Reeses cups for 10 minutes. Use a fork or a rolling pin and break up the mini cups. Top each cupcake with one of the broken peanut butter cups.