Hello friends! Recently I was watching Food Network and they were showing how to make Swiss meringue buttercream. My mom asked me to make it to see what all the fuss is about, so I went on the hunt for the perfect recipe as well as the perfect cupcake to pair with it. I ended up adapting a simple vanilla cake recipe and taking general ideas from many buttercream recipes. Here's what I came up with:
The Lineup (Cupcakes):
2 1/4 cups AP flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 box instant pistachio pudding mix
8 tbsp. butter, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
Splash vanilla
1 1/4 cups unsweetened almond milk, room temperature
(Buttercream)
4 oz. (1/2 cup) egg whites
1 cup sugar
16 tbsp. butter, cubed and softened
Seeds from 1 whole vanilla bean
The Play-by-Play:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line 2 cupcake pans.
- Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and dry pudding mix in a small bowl and set aside. Add a splash of vanilla to almond milk and set aside.
- Cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, mixing in between.
- Alternate adding flour mixture and milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Mix until just combined and smooth.
- Evenly distribute batter between 24 cavities, filling about 2/3 full. Bake 16-18 minutes until springy to the touch. Cool completely.
- Over a double boiler, combine egg whites and sugar until all granules dissolve and whites reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer. Place bowl in an ice bath to bring down to room temperature.
- Pour egg mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a balloon whisk and beat on medium high for about 10 minutes until soft peaks form. Add vanilla beans.
- Quickly add butter piece by piece while mixer is still going, mixing until combined and before buttercream starts to break down.
- Pipe buttercream onto cooled cupcakes. Enjoy!
I wish you all the best,
Erin
Hello friends! This is the first of the recipe series I'll be doing here, aptly named "Sweet Spot." Our first endeavor is scones. I'll be giving the basic recipe (I can't take credit here, it's a great Pinterest recipe I found and will link somewhere in this post), some photos during the process, as well as what I put in these delightful little treats.
The Lineup:
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. baking soda
4 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter, cut into small cubes
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
1 cup mix-ins
The Play-by-Play:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line baking sheets with parchment
paper.
2. In a small bowl, combine sour cream and baking soda. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
4. Incorporate cold, cubed butter into flour mixture using pastry cutter (or 2 knives)
until the butter is broken down into pea-sized pieces in the flour.
5. Beat the egg and vanilla into the sour cream mixture.
6. Mix the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture (you may want to use your
hands). Add milk if the dough is dry, but you don't want it be too liquidy. Mine came
out to be moist and slightly tacky, but still held its shape.
7. Add desired mix-ins, folding gently with hands.
8. Divide dough into 3 circles, cutting each circle into 6 triangles (I do 8 triangles, as I
tend to be heavy-handed with my knife).
9. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top and bottom. Be careful- they
go from golden to burnt very quickly!
10. Serve and enjoy!
Alternates:
- Blueberries
- Dried cherries, cranberries, or raisins
- Chocolate chips
- Canned pumpkin (start with 1/2 cup and add as desired) and pumpkin pie spice (1/2 tsp.)
- White chocolate chips and cranberries
- Orange or lemon zest
- Pumpkin pie spice (1/2 tsp.) and walnuts or pecans (I used this in half my batter)
- Cranberries and orange zest
- Dried cherries, pistachios, and almond extract (1/2 tsp.) (I used this in the other half of my batter)
Quick Play: This recipe halves beautifully, but keep the egg at 1 whole egg- makes the scones extra fluffy! (Perhaps try 2 in a whole batch...?)
Pro Tip: I also tried freezing the batter after I cut it into triangles (the pictures on the pans are what they looked like pre-freeze, so if you're going straight to baking you'll want to spread them out more.)
The Playmaker: http://www.thekitchenmagpie.com/the-best-scones-ever/
I wish you all the best,
Erin
