Back to Basics with Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

Wow! It's been a while. I've been out of the Blog-o-Sphere for a while. I was unfortunately sick for a while, with absolutely no appetite, so wasn't quite up to baking for a week or two, then I actually got to have a little getaway with the hubby and some friends. But I am back now and happy to share with you the latest recipe I've tried.

I have a tried and true vanilla cupcake recipe I always use. But, I've been very curious about vanilla cupcakes using real vanilla beans. I love love love vanilla, and even more so love seeing the little specs of black in things like vanilla bean ice cream, and real vanilla cupcakes. So I went on over to Annie's Eats and checked out this Vanilla Bean Cupcake recipe.

First, I whisked all the dry ingredients together, and set aside.



Then, I creamed the butter with the vanilla bean. I think you know you are a baking dork when the black specs of vanilla in the butter make you so happy and you think it's REALLY cool. If you click on this picture directly, it'll expand and you can see what I'm talking about ;)



After admiring the butter with little black specs, add the granulated sugar, and then add the dry ingredient mixture and buttermilk, alternating them.

Then, you know the drill, fill the pretty cupcake liners and bake 'em up. I just used the Wilton buttercream icing I typically use to keep things simple, I just colored mine a random blue I happened to have on hand (it was a serious coincidence that the blue happened to be the same exact blue Annie used). And voila, here you have it. I took the pretty cupcake liner off, so that you could kind of get a feel for the texture of the cupcake.


A basic, yet yummy, vanilla cupcake. I do have to note, as excited as I got about these cupcakes, I was surprised I did not achieve a richer vanilla flavor, as I had expected, by using the vanilla beans. But all in all, this was a super yummy cupcake.

xoxo,
Katie