Cupcake Wednesday: Vanilla Overload

It is time again to celebrate office birthdays at work, and big surprise! Guess who was asked to make cupcakes...again: Me! I really do love all the attention, I try not to let it go to my head. Since everyone here is useless when it comes to suggestions, I decided to showcase one of my new purchases... Vanilla Bean Paste.

Oh my goodness, that stuff is heavenly! I would like to bathe in it if I could, the scent is just intoxicating. In any event, I decided to adapt a vanilla cupcake recipe to suit my desires. For the frosting I made a delicious cream cheese vanilla bean frosting. It was so good! I made minis for the rest of the staff to pick up, and everyone raved about the frosting. Yeah, it was that good. In any event, enjoy my attempt at rolling the edges of the cupcakes in sprinkles in an effort to add some variety to my decorating "skills." Do be warned however, these are not for the vanilla shy.

This recipe was adapted from one that I found on the Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit called 3 vanilla cupcakes. Here is my version

Intense Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting
makes 2 dozen standard cupcakes and 2 dozen mini cupcakes

Cupcakes:
18 T butter at room temperature
2 2/3 C vanilla sugar
3 large eggs
4 C flour
2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 1/3 C milk
2 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 T vanilla bean paste

Frosting
1 C (2sticks) butter, at room temperature
6 oz cream cheese
3 T milk
1 T vanilla bean paste
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ½ C powdered sugar


1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes

3. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat until well combined.

4. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl

5. Combine milk with vanilla extract and paste.

6. Alternating between the dry ingredients and the wet, gradually add to the butter mixture starting and ending with the dry.

7. Fill muffin cups roughly 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake cupcakes for about 22-24 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.