Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes

I sat on the couch last night, and while the Red Sox played in the background, I scoured through my cookbooks for a vanilla cupcake recipe that included everything I had on hand. I’ve been to the grocery store one to many times this week. Nothing really struck me so I gave up and came to the computer (Sox were losing anyway). I did a food blog search and found a recipe for Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes on Baking Bites. Looked good to me and I did have buttermilk in the fridge, so I whipped up a batch this morning. I frosted these with one of my favorite buttercream frostings. Jesse is fishing today and staying at his Dad’s so I have Evan and my nephew Ryan tonight. This will be an after dinner treat.


Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
¼ cup butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ tsp almond extract
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F. Place liners in a 12 cup muffin tin.In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until it looks creamy. Beat in the egg and the vanilla and almond extracts until mixture is smooth.Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until almost combined. Add buttermilk and stir, again, until almost combined. Add the rest of the flour and stir until all ingredients are mixed in.

Divide batter evenly into muffin cups. Bake for 18-20 minutes at 350F, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool for 10 minutes and then remove from the muffin pan. Cool completely before frosting.
Makes 12 cupcakes

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
1 stick butter - room temp
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup milk (plus a few dashes to adjust consistency)
1 teaspoon vanilla.

Beat butter & cocoa until smooth, then add sugar one cup at a time, beating with each addition. Add milk & vanilla and beat about 3 minutes.