vanilla cupcake

Why Everyone Should Have an Easy Vanilla Cake Recipe
By Vince Platania

An easy vanilla cake recipe is essential for any good cook (or even a not-so-good cook who still needs to bake sometimes!). Whether you need it for a birthday, a baby shower, a graduation, tailgating, or "just because," a basic white cake should be part of any baker's repertoire. It can be served simply with frosting, or baked into cupcakes; it can be made more special by stirring in mini chocolate chips or crushed Oreos; or you can even cut it up and turn it into entirely different desserts, like skewered cake cubes dipped in chocolate. Very little in life is as adaptable and cooperative as a white cake!

Now, I normally create my own recipes; my hobby is entering cooking contests, so I'm always trying to come up with new ideas and devising new concoctions. (And in all honesty, some of those concoctions have been pretty odd in my efforts to be "innovative!") But I have to give credit where it's due, and my favorite easy vanilla cake recipe is a slight adaptation of one from Taste of Home magazine:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (double-strength, if you've got it)
2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/3 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350° F. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar; stir in the eggs and vanilla. Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add half the dry mixture, and combine well. Stir in the buttermilk until well mixed, then add the rest of the flour mixture and beat until smooth. Divide the batter between two greased and floured 9" baking pans and bake for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely.

Even if you don't have a specific occasion to bake for, but the craving for cake simply overtakes you, this easy vanilla cake recipe will calm your desires. Not only is it made very quickly, but it also requires no particular skill; so whether you're an expert or a novice, baking this cake will not be at all intimidating. And isn't that the best kind of recipe, one that is a sure thing? This easy vanilla cake recipe warmly invites anyone to enjoy it, even if they've never baked before.

Related blogs :

- Cake Recipes

- Good Cake Decorating

Vanilla cake lover also visit :

- Cute Cup Cake Book

- Hello Kitty Cup Cake

chocolate cupcakes

Flour-Less Chocolate Cupcakes Devine

By Lynne Hayes

This collection of recipes has been tried and tested on many occasions; I have included a couple of BONUS recipes that are family favorites.

Like my BEST EVER CHOCOLATE CAKE recipe, a favourite with my kids on their birthdays and everyone else who tries it. I use and recommend GLAD Bake & Cooking Paper as it is the best I've used to stop the Best Ever Chocolate Cake sticking to the tins.

Cooks tips
1. Make sure your butter and eggs are at room temperature before you start
2. Use caster sugar for a finer texture cake, as it is absorbed by the butter and eggs more rapidly
3. Always use the type of flour specified in the recipe
4. Cook cakes in the center of the oven
5. If you cook more than one at a time place them on the same shelf being very careful not to let the tins touch each other, the sides or back of the oven and always reverse the positions of the cakes 1/2 way through cooking time
6. Always line tins with paddy cases, glad bake or use silicone bake ware
7. Never substitute ingredients as the results will be entirely different

Flour-less chocolate cupcakes 200 grams dark chocolate (good quality cooking) 2 eggs 90 grams butter 1/4 cup caster sugar 1 1/2 cups almond meal

1. Place chocolate and butter in a heat proof bowl. Either place in microwave for 1 minute & stir OR sit over a saucepan of simmering water until melted. Cool slightly.
2. Beat sugar and eggs in a small bowl for 6 minutes, the mixture should be thick and pale.
3. Lightly fold the cooled chocolate mixture into the almond meal, then fold into the egg mixture
4. Spoon mixture into lined trays using an ice-cream scoop, fill to about 3/4 full. Bake for about 20 minutes then check with a fine skewer to see if cooked (inserted into cupcake, if it comes out clean then there perfect)
5. Remove from the trays straight away and cool on wire racks for at least 1/2 hour before icing. You can dust with icing sugar instead of icing these Cupcakes, or cook as one round cake.