I have been wanting to make cupcakes since St. Patrick’s Day. Last night, I finally made them. Over the years, I’ve learned that cakes and cupcakes need to be fully cooled before icing so it doesn’t crumble. Anyhow, the cupcakes turned out delicious. The batter was a bit thick – perfect for spooning out without getting everywhere. Also, note to self, make sure to do an ingredients inventory before starting to make anything.
Tonight when I went to mix up a batch of my favorite buttercream icing, I made the horrible discovery of having only 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar instead of 2-3 cups. Um, major oops there. It was time to get creative. I mean really creative as we didn’t even have milk. What can I say, it’s been a while since we did a full grocery shopping trip.
Without further ado, I give you my recipes…
Cupcakes (from Cupcakes by Susanna Tee)
I doubled the recipe from the book as it only called for 12 cupcakes.
+ 1 cup (2 sticks) soft margarine (or butter)
+ 1 cup white sugar
+ 4 eggs
+ 1-1/2 cup white flour
+ Small amount of flavor extracts (lemon, vanilla, orange, etc)
Preheat oven to 350*. Put paper baking cups into cupcake tins. Recipe should yield 24, but it only made 20.
Dump everything except the extract into a bowl and mix until smooth. I was looking for a unique flavor, so I added both vanilla and orange extracts to taste.
The batter will be thick. Spoon it into the tins about half full. They will rise during baking.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until the tops are golden brown – my oven required 25 minutes. Transfer to cooling racks and allow to cool completely.
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Peanut Butter Oatmeal Icing (aka holy crap I have no ingredients!)
+ 8 tbsp unsalted butter at room temperature
+ 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
+ 3 heaping spoonfuls creamy peanut butter (or to taste)
+ 1/2 cup rolled oats
+ Pinch of salt
Seriously, this was a totally made up, throw everything into the bowl and cross my fingers recipe. I started by mixing the butter and sugar together and it made a glaze.
Nope, didn’t like it.
Next I added 1 spoonful at a time of peanut butter (total 3) until I got to a decent flavor. It was decadently creamy and fluffy, but it was still missing something.
Hmm what else could I add?
iSpy a container of rolled oats; the raw kind that you mix with water and sugar and cook on the stove. Add enough to make the desired consistency. In my case it was 1/2 cup of rolled oats.
The salt was to give it a bit more flavor.
Refrigerate the icing before you ice the cupcakes just for a little bit of extra thickness not fully achieved by the oats. Dollop on the cupcakes and enjoy!
Oh yeah, these babies are totally going into work tomorrow. There are still 16 left and we don’t want them in the house. I know, I’m strange. I love baking, but neither of us really eat sweets.
These look divine!! Thanks for sharing your recipe!