Yesterday was my friend Anna's birthday, and as I had a whole fiasco with losing my wallet on the DC Metro during a quizbowl tournament, I didn't really have much money to buy presents. And so, I did what I could and whipped up these great vanilla cupcakes with clementine-vanilla buttercream. It was originally just going to be a classic vanilla cupcake with plain ol' (but still delicious) vanilla buttercream, but luckily Daniel, another person who lives in my dorm, came in with a couple of clementines that he didn't want. One man's trash is another man's treasure, as they say. I then proceeded to squish up the clementines into smaller pieces and stick them directly into my mostly already made buttercream.
I delivered the cupcakes to her in this great cupcake keeper, which my friends kind of made fun of me for owning (in a "Connie would" sort of way). I love this cupcake keeper. Before I got this, I had been making a shoddy keeper that involved foil being suspended above the cupcakes by toothpicks being stuck into a couple of the unlucky few baked goods that were placed on the periphery. No more worrying about cupcake piping getting ruined!
So, without further ado, here is a recipe:
Vanilla Cupcakes with Clementine Vanilla Buttercream
makes 24 minis
Cake Ingredients:
- 1/2 c. butter
- 1 c. sugar
- 1 c. flour
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 7 tbsp milk
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Mix butter and sugar using a mixer until well combined.
- Add in flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix well.
- Add in wet ingredients (egg yolks, vanilla, milk) and mix.
- Pour into muffin cups about halfway.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes (toothpick test!).
- 1/2 c. butter (room temperature)
- 3.5 c. powdered sugar
- 1 tsp milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 clementines
- Peel clementines and chop/crush them up.
- Mix butter and powdered sugar until creamy.
- Add in milk and vanilla extract. Mix well.
- Add in the clementines. Mix again.