Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes

A Taste Of Yellow is a blog event started by the brave and beautiful Barbara of Winos And Foodies. It's an event she created to support LiveSTRONG Day and raise cancer awareness. Barbara has been hosting this event since 2007 and it gets such wonderful and encouraging response every year. Almost all lives today have been touch by cancer one way or the other and a Taste Of Yellow gives us a chance to lend a hand in a way that we, as food bloggers, love...through food. Yellow food to be exact. Sunny, bright, hopeful, yellow food!

This year she adds a new theme. She asks us to incorporate a heart into entry, which I think is a fantastic idea! After all, the warm comforting blanket of love can sometimes be the best medicine of all.

For this round I decided to try a recipe that had been sitting in my to-bake files for ages. The Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes. I love the sunshiney personality of vanilla cupcakes, despite being a chocolate person, and can never have enough of them.

Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 ½ cups self raising flour
• 1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Line two 12 cup muffin tins with cupcake papers.
- Cream butter at medium speed in large bowl.
- Add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy. Then add eggs.
- Combine flours. Add to butter mixture in four parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla extract.
- Spoon the batter into cups so they are ¾ full.
- Bake until the tops spring back when touched, about 20 minutes.

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 8 cups confectioners’ sugar
• ½ cup milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

- Place butter, milk, vanilla extract and 4 cups of sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat until smooth and creamy.
- Gradually add the remaining sugar, once cup at a time until thick.
- Add a few drops of food coloring if desired and mix thoroughly.
- Spread icing on cooled cupcakes.

I have never actually been to the Magnolia Bakery so I can't compare how these measure up to the originals. That being said, they were, as I'd hoped, cheery and delicious, with a light crumb and a warming vanilla scent. The icing I found to be a little bit runny but that could just be our hot weather taking it's toll on my poor buttercream! I found the heart sprinkles in a terrific baking supplies store I had recently visited for the first time. And yes, I did pick out all the yellow ones for the first two cupcakes...it's the least I could do for being late, don't you think?

Thank you Barbara for hosting another round of A Taste Of Yellow and for being such an inspiration and a great blogger friend to boot! I hope you like my heart as much as I admire yours :)