Vanilla Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

Cupcakes? Frosting? Sprinkles!? It's birthday time!  If you've been here a while, you know that this time of year is marked by a very special set of birthdays.  My twin baby cousins are officially 3 years old today! They're a cute set of rambunctious little toddlers who are finally out of their terrible two's, and entering their terrible three's. They're celebrating with an adorable, home-crafted Elmo birthday celebration, and even though I'm never able to be with them at their actual birthday party, I always make them an honorary batch of cupcakes to celebrate.  Two years ago I made ganache-frosted, pudding-filled chocolate cupcakes; one year ago I made tons of mini vanilla cupcakes, frosted in an array of colors, and shaped in a big "2."  This year, I wanted to keep things super classic. Nothing says kid's birthday quite like a vanilla cupcake and chocolate frosting, right?  The twins are fans of Nutella though (as evidenced by Valentina enjoying waffles with Nutella one morning during my last trip to Colombia), and since I'm also a fan of Nutella, a Nutella topped cupcake with colorful sprinkles seemed like a fun and easy twist on a birthday favorite. 

I really feel that vanilla cakes are one of the hardest things to bake. I mean, they're pretty basic in theory (because isn't a vanilla cake the basis for all flavored layer cakes anyway?), and they seem like a natural first step in cake baking, but I find this to be completely untrue. Nailing a vanilla cake is hard. I have yet to find or develop what I consider to be a perfect vanilla cake, with a recipe that develops consistent results each and every time. I've already figured out my favorite chocolate cake recipes, and most of them I only had to make once to realize that they were special in every way possible (rich, with a real chocolate taste, moist, and with a wonderful crumb). Even chocolate cakes that end up not making my list of favorites are usually really delicious anyway. Vanilla cakes are definitely not like foolproof chocolate cakes. They're more fickle; if I get the texture just right the flavor isn't quite what I'm looking for, or vice versa. Or the recipe, if it was really good, doesn't perform the same way the second time around. It's a series of trial and error, but at least it's a fun experiment! 

Buttermilk Vanilla Cake with Nutella Frosting

Here it is.  This is the cake I've been longing for for quite some time now.  I love coming up with unique and complex flavor combinations as much as the next person, but I think that what I love more than anything is enjoying a really, really good version of a classic favorite.  Classics are comforting and tried and true and you can approach them with confidence because you know that they will work.  There's no way they can't!  I'm a true chocaholic, but even I can't resist a slice of vanilla cake with fudge frosting.  The combination is just too perfect.

I'm definitely not a pro yet at decorating layer cakes, and I often feel that my frosting abilities leave something to be desired.  I usually think that the layers of frosting in between each cake layer are too thick or too thin, or that I took the "thin" layer of crumb coat a bit too far, or that my outer layer of frosting isn't thick or smooth enough.  I'm always trying to come up with little tricks here and there to improve every time I make a layer cake, and I think I'm making progress!  Even this cake gave me a little trouble.  I knew that I wanted a simple, fuss-free swirled layer of fudge frosting to completely cover the cake, but I was having a little trouble getting the swirls to look exactly like I imagined them in my head.  In the end though, the swirls came to be, and I was in love with the little cake sitting before me. 

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

This vanilla bean ice cream has been on my "to-make" list for some time now.  I'm definitely a chocolate person all the way, but I find a scoop of rich, pure vanilla bean ice cream completely irresistible.  Granted, I typically like my vanilla ice cream topped off with a generous drizzle of hot fudge, or a few spoonfuls of a freshly made berry compote, but every now and then I'll come across a vanilla ice cream that is just so good, it needs absolutely nothing else to finish it off.  It's the kind of ice cream that I just can't help but grab just a spoonful of straight from the container whenever I happen to pass through my kitchen.  This, is that kind of ice cream.  

This vanilla bean ice cream recipe comes straight from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop, a book that any ice cream lover must have in their collection of cookbooks.  Whenever I decide on a recipe to try out, I typically will make a few changes here and there for the flavorings used to suit my own tastes; I'll add a little less sugar, a few more chocolate chips, swap in some buttermilk or Greek yogurt for milk.  I just like to play around with recipes and see what happens.  In this instance though, I knew from the beginning that I was going to leave this vanilla bean ice cream recipe alone.  My logic was that if it was written by David Lebovitz, then it needed no further tweaking.  Let's just say that I'm glad I left this recipe alone and made no changes to it...the recipe was perfect on its own!

Chocolate Vanilla Pudding Swirl Pops

Well, it feels like we've finally made it to summer!  Or at least, I hope so.  I mean, ok, I know that it's almost the first official day of summer, and as happy as I am about it, I sure hope the weather decides to cooperate!  Things in NY have been pretty darn depressing lately, and it's been way too cold and way too rainy.  Sure, we've had our moments of sunshine and warm weather every now and then, but seriously?  I wore boots, long pants, and a jacket to work way too many times in the past two and a half weeks.  It was getting ridiculous.  This week looks very promising though, even though yesterday's sky was gray and rainy for most of the day.  I'm going to be crossing my fingers and hoping that this beautiful weather we're finally having will stay!  In case it doesn't, though, I have decided to disregard the weather outside in favor of simply going by the fact that it is practically summer, meaning that it's officially time to make tons of summery treats, regardless of whether or not the weather wants to actually feel like it.  First up on my list of summer treats: chocolate vanilla pudding swirl pops!

Pretty Pink Ombre Surprise Cake

I've been a bit MIA for the past couple of days, and haven't posted a new recipe since the last cookie I posted before Christmas...which was like a week and a half ago...oops.  I guess I was getting a bit carried away with the fact that I'm on winter vacation!  It sure has been nice to rest up and sleep late for a couple of days, but it's time to get back to work!  I actually woke up early yesterday, and decided to make something big, and something special.  I wanted it to be something relevant to New Year's (which is tomorrow!!!), but I wasn't sure what to make.  I made champagne cupcakes last year, which were delicious, but I wasn't sure what to do for this year. Champagne seems to be the obvious solution to all New Year's baking dilemmas, but I wanted to go with something a little bit different...but what?

I was thinking of doing something along the lines of a boozy trifle, or some yummy mini desserts, but I just wasn't sure.  They didn't have the "wow" factor that I was going for.  I decided to ask my sister for help, because she almost always has some crazy idea up her sleeve for me to try out, and this time was no exception. She suggested making a special layer cake.  

Funfetti Cupcakes

My very best friend at Columbia and I have a lot of things in common.  We both loveee music, have a slight obsession with Halloween (this year's Halloween costumes have already been picked out...don't judge us please), and we love to cook and bake, cupcakes in particular, obviously.  In fact, it's not far-fetched to say that baking is one of the things that got us to be friends in the first place!  We lived together in a suite during our freshman year, and she'd always be making really adorable cupcakes, whether it was for a bake sale, for one of her classes, or just for the hell of it (my personal favorite reason for making cupcakes).  Eventually, we started making them together, and we'd bring a giant tray of cupcakes all around the suite to share with all our suitemates.  Our cupcakes became pretty popular!  We're starting our senior year in a matter of just a few short weeks (!!!) and we're living in an amazinggg suite with an amazinggg kitchen (it's definitely a tiny kitchen, but by NYC apartment standards, I think it's pretty amazing), and I'm so incredibly excited.  The amount of sugary adventures that will take place in that kitchen and the cupcakes that will result from them is gonna be ridiculous, and I can't wait for it!

While my friend and I have a lot of things in common, there is one thing that we always have, and probably always will, disagree on: chocolate, or vanilla?  If you've been following me for a while, you know by now that I am a huge chocolate person, and the more chocolate that's in a recipe, the better.  My friend is the total opposite, and while she'll definitely appreciate good chocolate, she's definitely a vanilla person all the way.  We often get into silly little debates about which is better, and we always end up remaining loyal to our favorite flavors.  Chocolate will always win, in my opinion, and there's nothing I love more than experimenting with different recipes for chocolate cake.  It was only until recently that I realized that I did not have a single vanilla cake recipe on my site...every cake and cupcake was chocolate!  I decided that this needed to change, so I knew that my next step was to make a delicious vanilla cupcake.  I decided that to celebrate this endeavor into vanilla-territory, I'd throw in some rainbow sprinkles and transform my vanilla cupcakes into funfetti cupcakes!