Hello everyone!

I hope you all had great Christmas’ celebrations and wonderful Holidays so far!

I wanted to do cupcakes in a jar for a long time but I didn’t get the chance and I didn’t have cute jars. Now was the perfect time and except for the difficulty to pipe inside the jars, they were fun to do and turned out really great. The recipe I used for the vanilla cupcake has been named the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake by the Cupcake Project who along with 50 other test bakers perfected a vanilla cupcake recipe to make it the best! And it is, indeed, the best I have ever eaten so far : moist, fluffy and tasty!!!

Hope you enjoy this post See you in 2013 (Happy New Year!!!)

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe
From Cupcake Project
Yield: 16 cupcakes

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 3/4 cups cake flour, not self-rising
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup full-fat sour cream
• 1/4 cup canola oil or vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup whole milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a small bowl, combine sugar and seeds from the vanilla bean.
3. Using the back of a spoon, move around the bowl and apply pressure to break up any clumps of seeds and to infuse the vanilla flavor into the sugar. Set aside.
4. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, mix together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
5. Add the vanilla bean sugar and mix until well combined.
6. Add butter and mix on medium-low speed for three minutes.  Because there is so little butter, you’ll end up with a very fine crumb texture.
7. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla extract until smooth.
8. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined.
9. Slowly add milk and mix on low speed until just combined.  The batter will be liquid.
10. Fill cupcake liners just over 1/2 full.
11. Bake for 14 minutes and or until a toothpick comes out clean. The cupcakes should appear white with specks of vanilla bean. They should not turn a golden brown.
12. When the cupcakes are done, remove them immediately from the tins and leave them on a cooling rack to cool.

Malted Chocolate and Mint Swiss Meringue Buttercream
From Sweetapolita
Yield: 5 cups

• 5 large egg whites
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, cut into cubes
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
• 1 tablespoon malted milk powder
• 4 chocolate squares (4 oz total)
• Green food coloring
• 2 Crushed candy canes

1. Add egg whites and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Simmer over a pot of water (not boiling), whisking constantly, until temperature reaches 160 degrees F, or if you don’t have a candy thermometer, until the sugar has completely dissolved and the egg whites are hot.
2. With whisk attachment of mixer, begin to whip until the mixture is thick, glossy, and cool. Switch over to paddle attachment and, while mixing on medium speed continuously, add softened butter in chunks until incorporated, and mix until it has reached a silky smooth texture (if curdles, keep mixing and it will come back to smooth).
3. Add vanilla and salt, mix well.
4. Separate the batch in two.
5. In the first batch, add the peppermint extract and two drops of green food coloring, mix well.
6. For the second batch, melt the chocolate squares in a double boiler. Let cool about ten minutes and add to the buttercream. Add the malted milk powder and mix well.

Assembly

1. Slice cupcakes horizontally to create layers. I sliced them in two but if you want thinner layers, you can cut them in three parts.
2. Place one cupcake layer into the bottom of your jar, pipe a layer of malted chocolate buttercream directly onto the cake layer.
3. Add another cake layer and then pipe mint buttercream on top.
4. Finally, add another layer of cupcake and pipe malted chocolate buttercream on top.
5. Sprinkle with candy cane morsels.

Note : I did half a recipe of SMB and used 3 cupcakes to make only two jars. With a little less SMB in each jars I could have made a third one (I had enough to eat with cupcakes but not enough to make a whole jar!)