[St. Patrick's Day Cupcake] Perfectly fluffy and soft treats to celebrate St. Paddy's day

As you might have easily guessed, I'm not Irish :). Still I feel like celebrating St. Paddy's day on March 17th. I went to an over-crowded Irish pub on every St. Paddy's day with Irish friends when I didn't have dependents. I gave up the idea of going to an Irish pub on St. Paddy's day since I was pregnant with Remi in 2004. Therefore, it has been already 10 years that I had a can of Guinness at home instead of a draft at an Irish pub. (Wow, how could time pass so fast????) I must say I miss the jovial atmosphere of the pub filled with gleeful crowd holding dark stout. But, I can wait for another 8 years~ :) 

Yeah, we will still have two dependents in 8 years from today, but they will be fine on their own for an evening, or they may be celebrating St. Paddy's way with their friends, I expect? For now, I'm happy with baking a dozen cupcakes to celebrate St. Paddy's day with my three guys. I'll bake some more for my colleagues tonight. 

I've been looking for a soft basic vanilla cupcake recipe. Believe me, I've tried more than a dozen vanilla cake recipes. I liked some of them more than others. Nevertheless, I couldn't fine "the" one recipe to use over and over. But now I think I finally found THE recipe at Cookies and Cups site. 

I've made only one small modification to the original recipe: use of cold butter instead of butter at room temperature. 

And, I was surprised by its ultra fluffiness and softness. I love these simple cupcakes I made! You can finish the cupcakes with any kind of frosting of your choice. I covered my cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with green shamrock sprinkles. 

Here goes the recipe for the super soft cupcake:

(adapted from Cookies and Cups)

   

  

Ingredients

(for a dozen cupcakes. halved from the original recipe)
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons cake flour

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 cup cup sugar

1 + 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cup butter, cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°

2. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

3. In bowl of food processor or blender, add the first 5 dry ingredients and stir together using paddle attachment for about a minute. Enough to get them nice and combined.

4. With mixer on low, drop in butter, a few cubes at a time continuing until all butter is in and mixer resembles coarse sand.

5. Add eggs one at a time on low speed.

6. With mixer still on low slowly pour in milk and vanilla. Turn mixer to medium and beat for 2 minutes until batter is smooth, scraping sides of bowl as needed.

7. Fill liners 2/3 full (about 1/4 cup batter) and bake for 15-20 minutes until centers are set and toothpick comes out clean.

8. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

9. Decorate the cupcakes with prepared frosting and sprinkles (optional).

Cream cheese frosting recipe.

(adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, p. 303)

Ingredients

180g (6 oz) cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and cream cheese until fluffy, 2-3 minutes.

Reduce speed to low. Add sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, and then vanilla, and mix until smooth and combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

I am very confident that you 'd love this recipe too.

Enjoy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!