Orange Cupcakes

Cupcakes…don’t you love them? I confess I do.  I like them so much that i decided to dedicate my weekend project to them. It all started on Friday evening when I was going thru my list of favorite food blogs and checking for updates. I found a link for tips on baking “the perfect cupcakes” in which I also found: “use your preferred batter to make your cupcakes”! That was just what I needed to get me going. My first idea ,as you probably guessed, was chocolate. However after my mid-week chocolate cake disaster (and yes I didn’t post that here because this is supposed to be a blog for yummy food and that deffinetelly didn’t fit in this category…)  I went for the second option: orange.

I have this recipe for orange cake without milk  and butter that I’ve been baking for a few years with pretty much 99% success. It is a simple and easy to follow recipe that results in a fluffly-moist- sort of-sponge-orange cake.  Yummy!!!

But remember,  we were talking cupcakes. I wasn’t sure the batter would work for small cakes and I thought I would end up with “muffin shapped” cakes instead.  Anyway, I tried and look at the result:

Perfectly shapped cupcakes. I couldn’t believe. The tip to follow just 2/3 of the cup with batter works beautifully.

Next step was the icing. Did I tell you that I didn’t choose the icing before? Yes, sad truth: I didn’t plan what icing I would have in my beautiful cupcakes! So, as usual I run to my recipes folder and found  a vanilla icing recipe that I had never used before. It seemed way too much butter in only one recipe but I didn’t have any other option. This is what I got:

A not so perfect icing with a nice taste to the most. I’m still not sure if I didn’t mix it properly or if it was really too much butter.  

Anyway, the orange cupcakes compensated the average taste icing and overall it was quite good.  Next time I will stick with the orange cake recipe and try a different icing.

Orange Cupcakes Recipe

2 cups of flour

1 ½ cup of sugar

3 eggs

1 cup of orange juice

1 tablespoon of baking powder

First separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. With a hand mixer beat the egg whites until foamy.

In a separate bowl mix the 3 egg yolks and the sugar for 2 to 3minutes. Add the orange juice and keep mixing in a lower speed until totally incorporated.

In another bowl whisk the flour and baking powder togheter. Add this mixture slowly to the bowl with the egg yolks, sugar and orange juice. Next fold the egg whites in until incorporated.

Line the cupcakes paper molds in a muffin baking tray. Spoon the batter in the molds filling up to 2/3 of the mold. Bring the tray to a pre-heated oven at medium temperature and bake the cupcakes for about 20 min. The baking time can vary depending on the size of the cakes and the temperature of the oven. Basically the cakes should be baked until the centers are firm to touch.

After baked let the cakes cool down for 5 minutes and transfer to a wire rack.

Vanilla Icing

½ cup of butter (unsalted)

1 ½ cups of icing sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

2 tablespoons of milk

Cream the butter with a hand mixer until soft. Add the icing sugar and mix to the butter in lower speed until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and the milk. Change the mixer speed to high and mix until icing is fluffly and light.

Add the icing to the cupcakes.