Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche filling and Dulce de Leche Buttercream

I volunteered to bring a dessert for our neighborhood Spanish Immersion family potluck. My neighbor friend Kiri throws a mean party. There were about 6-8 families with 18 children running around. Yikes! We all brought foods for the feast.

Dulce de Leche translates to sweetened milk, I think. I made the dulce de leche from evaporated milk- a few hours in the oven and it was caramel goodness! You can buy canned dulce de leche from the Hispanic aisle in the grocery store but that's no fun! I do admit that I bought a can just in case. I did end up using a bit when I ran out of my homemade stuff.

The third recipe I have linked below used canned dulce de leche and a different cake recipe. Like I said, I wanted to make my own dulce de leche, and then I found the cake recipe to be too fussy. I didn't have the opportunity to make vanilla sugar (this takes days/weeks) so I found an alternate cake recipe. It turned out well! The cake was moist, fluffy, and so beautiful with its vanilla bean specks.

 

I scopped a small amount of cake from the tops of each cupcake and filled them with the dulce de leche. My little guy had lots of fun stealing cake bits when I wasn't looking. (Really, I saw. I ignored!)

The buttercream was piped prettily on top of each cupcake. I'm getting pretty good with that pastry bag!

 

It was nice to try some new recipes! I think sometimes that I have lost my baking mojo. Let's hope it comes back in full force in summer, when I have much more time to experiment!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Vanilla Bean cupcakes.

Click here for the stolen recipe for the Dulce de Leche.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Dulce de Leche buttercream frosting.

 

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Vanilla Latte Cupcakes

 

It is one of my work bestie's birthday this weekend and we are celebrating tomorrow! She is a coffee lover too so I'm hoping these Vanilla Latte cupcakes will go over well! It is a surprise!

The recipe is from Annie's Eats, so it was sure to be a good one. The cake has espresso powder AND brewed coffee in the mix (I skipped the Kahlua, since it was for WORK. BOO!) and the frosting is a Swiss Meringue frosting. Half of the frosting got a concentrated espresso powder boost and it was piped prettily in a swirl. The vanilla bean flecks are just lovely! I just LOVE fresh vanilla.

 

The cake was moist and fluffy, with just a subtle coffee flavor. I expected it to be a heavy flavor and I was very glad it was not. The frosting is one of my favorite kinds- the Swiss Meringue has to be cooked in a double boiler, and then ultra whipped by my KitchenAid mixer for a good eight minutes into stiff peaks and to cool down. It is a silky, lovely, not-too-sweet frosting. YUM.

Thumbs up!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Vanilla Latte Cupcakes.

 

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Vanilla Ice Cream

I had to look back on all of the ice creams I've made (really, not too many) to see if I've ever made plain old vanilla ice cream. I hadn't! I thought this was a perfect time to get my feet wet with ice cream this season and soon enough I'll make the "fancier" kinds. I have my eye on a Tiramisu recipe...

This ice cream definitely does not disappoint. Look at those vanilla bean specks!

 

 

 

I always make the ice cream custard a few hours (or the night) before I want to churn the ice cream. It needs to be CHILLED before you attempt to churn it. It is just ideal. So I made the vanilla mixture last night and left the vanilla bean pod in the mixture. It got nice and happy overnight!

 

The flavor is amazing! I just snuck this small bowl of ice cream as a pick me up :) I have plans for the ice cream for tonight's dessert. I bought some rhubarb at the grocery store and it's just DYING to be made into Rhubarb Ginger Crumble, and then topped with this ice cream?? My husband is going to kiss me... twice!

The recipe is from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. Most of the ice cream recipes I make are from this book. I love it. You just can't go wrong. I hope I run into DL in Paris. That'd be sweet!

Click here for the link to David Lebovitz's website and link for Vanilla Ice Cream.

 

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Cupcake Surprise

I couldn't resist this Cupcake book at Target. And then I thought of the neat recipe I had bookmarked for One Bowl Vanilla Cupcakes for Two. While James was occupied with his TV show I whipped up these easy cupcakes, and then half a recipe of (easy) vanilla frosting. I hid my work and then surprised him with the book first.

It's a cute story of a vanilla cupcake who is sad that he is so plain and ordinary. An ordinary birthday candle tries to help him with different toppings to make him special, but in the end they join forces to become a special birthday cupcake.

I brought out my box of sprinkles and things and told James we could decorate some plain cupcakes to make them special for us.

Excuse the dirty, wrinkled up face but he was clearly excited about something!

A loose sprinkle.

James' Special Cupcake, a little heavy on the sprinkles.

The cupcakes were good! These ordinary cupcakes could be customized in so many ways- by adding chocolate chips, cocoa powder, fruit, etc. It's nice to just make TWO cupcakes whenever you need them! (Haha. NEED cupcakes. I mean, WANT.)

Now I just have to tell James that he doesn't get cupcakes EVERY TIME we read this book!

Please click here for the stolen recipe for One Bowl Vanilla Cupcakes for Two.

Please click here for the stolen recipe for Martha's Fluffy Vanilla Frosting. I found this frosting recipe in my Martha Stewart Cupcakes book. THREE ingredients. So very easy.