Taste Testing Cupcakes from State to State!

I have always enjoyed baking but really caught the baking from scratch bug when I lived in France. Going to the store to pick up a box mix of brownies or Red Velvet Cake was never an option nor did cans of Betty Crocker Chocolate Frosting line the grocery store shelves. If I wanted something sweet and rich, I had to learn to make it on my own. Since then I have gone back and forth trying to come up with the best cupcakes to my liking along with a frosting that is not too sweet and not too buttery. I began to wonder, what does a good cupcake taste like? What, according to the loyal fans of various cupcake bakeries, is the perfect cupcake?

What I found as I traveled around Gulf Port, Mississippi, Bossier City, Louisiana and New York City, New York is there is no constant, there is no standard recipe that everyone goes crazy for. Some people like it sweet, some people like it dry, some people like it filled, some people like it big, some like it tiny and some only like it because it has a famous name.

Frostings: Gourmet Filled Cupcakes
These cupcakes were actually very tasty. They looked more decadent than most cupcakes I have run across, with mounds of frosting and little extras. They took standard chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and made them outrageous with fillings and toppings. Pretty smart tactic! You never have to worry about your cupcake not quite tasting right if you only perfect two cupcakes.

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes: The base of this cupcake actually tasted like one of those spongy short cakes.
White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes: With a plain vanilla base, this was probably my favorite. The cupcake was lightly filled with a raspberry filling with a white chocolate frosting. The only drawback, I wish there had been more raspberry with each bite!
Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes: Vanilla Cupcake base with small chunks of apple filling and a cinnamon butter cream frosting and caramel drizzled on top. I loved the cinnamon butter cream frosting!
Mint Chocolate Cupcakes: Chocolate Cupcake with Mint butter cream filling and Mint butter cream frosting, topped with chocolate chips.

The frostings on top of the cupcakes are really what made the cupcakes the "flavors" they are. Without the frosting, they really are just vanilla or chocolate cupcakes but I guess they can get away with it with a name like Frostings.

Buttercups Cupcakes
Ah, Buttercups! Every time I log on to Facebook one or ten of my friends is talking about the yummy cupcakes they experienced that day from Buttercups. The cupcakes are not anything special, they are not filled with fillings or decorated with a massive amount of frosting but they are good,.. so good in fact, Katie Holmes couldn't get enough of them when filming her movie Mad Money in Louisiana.

Vanilla Cupcake: Vanilla cupcake with Buttercream frosting. For me, the cupcakes are a bit sweet and not quite as moist as I would like.
Wedding Cake Cupcake: I could not quite differientiate between the wedding cake and vanilla cupcake except the butter cream frosting had a bit of almond extract added to it. This was not my favorite.
Chocolate Cupcake: I am not a huge fan of Buttercups because they are a bit too sweet for me. In fact, we saved the chocolate cupcake for later because after splitting two cupcakes, I was in sugar overdrive. The Chocolate, however, was great! It was very moist inside and the buttercream frosting complimented it beautifully.

Buttercups is not a cupcake bakery I would frequent very often except for the "coolness" factor since it is such a hit with all of my friends. However, every once in a while, it would be great for a sweet treat. As I said before, cupcakes are obviously a very personal thing! Obviously Katie Holmes loved them, ordering over 500 dozen during her stay in Louisiana but they are just not right for me.

Magnolia Bakery
Magnolia Bakery is well known through out the US from Sex and the City and just about every other person who loves cupcakes! I have been baking their Vanilla Cupcake for a while now with a few tweaks of my own but I have always loved their original recipe and was very excited to get to try the cupcake at their actual bakery.

Vanilla Cupcake: The Vanilla Cupcake lived up to its hype. I loved it... not quite as good as mine of course (wink and a smile) but it was very good. I was actually shocked. All the hyped up cupcakes always seem to fail in my eyes and this one was actually good.
Red Velvet Cupcake: And I thought only people in the south knew how to do a good red velvet! The red was actually red and it was gorgeous! The cupcake was not quite as good as I had hoped but it was a good cupcake.
Chocolate Cupcake: The chocolate cupcake was good but not nearly as good as I expected. I would buy it again because I love chocolate but it needed a bit richer chocolate.

All in all, Magnolia Bakery's cupcakes were good cupcakes but my favorite was the Vanilla Cupcake. It gave me those night warm, fuzzy feelings. I cannot wait to eat them again!

I did it! Buttercream-y delicous-ness!

I did it! I created buttercream frosting and it tasted fantastic! I was shocked, awed and I couldn't wait for Soner to come home to exclaim, "You did it! Congratulations! World's best frosting! just like Will Ferrell in Elf. So maybe it wasn't that great but it was a pretty monumental moment for me. Too bad I ruined it when I dumped a cup of chopped strawberries into it this morning. A little too over zealous. I guess I should have been happy with one milestone at a time.

One piece of advice, purchase a food scale. It will be the best decision of your life! Maybe I am being a bit dramatic but you can purchase one for $30 and finally take the guess work out of over-packing the flour or under packing the brown sugar. You can also eliminate the need to dirty up all of your measuring cups. Place the bowl on top of the food scale, turn it on and the scale will automatically eliminate the bowl and whatever ingredients you already have inside and start at "0." It is genius especially when I want to add sugar to the bowl already containing butter.

Next week I will begin tweaking the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes and taste test any other winning recipes people send my way. Til then, I look forward to my next sugar induced coma!

Here's the buttercream recipe a friend gave me:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 pound powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk, if necessary

Cupcake Experiment #3 using Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

This cupcake decision was quite literally and surprisingly, a piece of cake! I am literally devouring a Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake right now as we speak because they are so tasty! Who would have guessed. Sure, the thousands of people who are fans of Magnolia Bakery but what about everyone else who actually take the time to taste the cupcakes. As I said before, most cupcakes are a lot of hype that many people buy into because a famous person has eaten there or they saw it in a movie. I was prepared for the worst with these cupcakes and what I got was the best of the three cupcakes I have taste tested in the last three days.

Most famous bakeries, I'm sure, begin with a great recipe. Then, the masses come and they come, and they come and pretty soon the bakeries are so overwhelmed with customers they have to become more efficient with their processes thus the end of bakery fresh, straight from the oven taste and the beginning of a commercialized taste that is only a bit better than a cupcake from a plastic wrapper. Take Sprinkles for example. I have read about Sprinkles in all the tabloids, how wonderful they are, how fabulous they look and how just the other day Paris Hilton was seen inhaling one. I finally tasted one and I began wondering why the little cupcake bakery in Houston I have frequented a few times isn't famous and even more so than Sprinkles. Maybe it was my agitation at how rude the employees were or maybe it was the actual taste but needless to say, I will not be frequenting them again. I prefer instead to find small undiscovered bakeries who are still willing to put in the time and effort to make gorgeous AND tasty cupcakes.

Imagine my surprise when I baked the famous Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes and they turned our scrumptious! I devoured every last crumb. I actually forgot this was an experiment at one point and just kept eating. The Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake was hands down the best cupcake out of the three tested, out-tasting Martha Stewart's Yellow Buttermilk Cupcake and JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcake. The cupcake recipe was also completely different than the previous two and much easier to mix, completely eliminating salt and baking powder for self-rising flour. I baked two half batches of the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake, one original and one Greek Yogurt infused batch. I expected the yogurt infused batch to be tastier and more moist like the past experimental batches but I was surprised yet again. The original recipe was far tastier than the yogurt infused batch. Our apartment landlords were around at the time of tasting and they also both agreed the original tasted far better than the yogurt infused, however, the texture was better in the yogurt infused.
This recipe may be the recipe I play around with and tweak, adding less yogurt, maybe more vanilla, changing the eggs from whole eggs to yolks, etc. If you have a cupcake recipe you absolutely love, send it to me. I'd love to compare the flavors.

My experimenting must come to an end for this week as I have yet to make a batch for fun and am looking forward to finally being able to decorate all of my hard work. Unfortunately before I begin, I must play around with the buttercreams! Not a task I enjoy. My buttercream always tastes like a stick of butter with a little sugar added in so cross your fingers for me today and let the decorating begin!

Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes:

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 2 (1/2 cup-12 capacity) muffin tins with cupcake papers.

In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

Cool the cupcakes in tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.