*Number Cakes*

"In the beginning, cupcakes were sometimes called "number" cakes, because they were easy to remember by the measurements of the ingredients it took to make them:

One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, four eggs, one cup of milk, and one spoonful of soda."

A little excerpt from French's Bakery

I wanted to practice my baking and cupcake making skillz so I decided who would be better taste testers than my kids at work. So I went on a baking frenzy Thursday night. I decided to use Amy Sedaris' (hilarious) recipe that can be found here.

First, make sure butter and egg are at room temperature to ensure a moist cupcake. I creamed the butter so that it would be soft and workable and added the vanilla and egg. Then I beat in the sugar.

In a separate bowl I sifted the dry ingredients then added it to the wet ingredients a little at a time.

Add the milk, beat until cupcake like consistency and fill liner 1/2-2/3 full. Bake. And they should come out looking something like....

This!

I also made the Chocolate Cupcake by following this recipe. It initially starts off like the vanilla cupcakes but after combining the wet ingredients you also add in the melted chocolate mixture.

As a little shortcut, I microwaved the butter and chocolate together to create the chocolate mixture. Add the chocolate to the wet ingredients. I also added in the sour cream to make the cupcake moist. Gradually combine the dry ingredients and pour until liner is 1/2 full.

And they will turn out like...

This! delish!

As for the icing, I opted to make a Vanilla Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache icing both found here.

Chop up the chocolate. I used Hershey's Milk Chocolate. Heat some heavy whipping cream to the point just prior to boiling. Pour cream into bowl with chocolate and let it sit to melt. After a little while mix it up good and add some pads of butter.

The buttercream frosting was actually my favorite thing to make out of all of this. I've never made it before and didn't realize how easy and straightforward it was. Butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and hot water. Beat it all together. Easy. Simple. NOMlicious!

So that was it for the baking part. I packed it all up and brought it in for my kids to decorate. Of course, I had to do one (or two) for myself to make sure it tasted good. This is what I came up with.

Moist. Tasty. Sweet. I can make cupcakes now. :)

And just for fun I'd thought I add some pics of my kids creations...

And of course, after all this baking your kitchen will look like this. I can't wait til I have my own sous chef to deal with this...

Happy Baking!

:)