Vanilla Blitz Cupcakes

I have a confession. I don't love vanilla cupcakes. Well let me explain, I like making them and decorating them and seeing ones that others have created. But when it comes to eating them, let's just say there are a lot of other sweets I would choose to eat before I picked up a vanilla cupcake. I'm not sure where it comes from but I just think of vanilla cupcakes as dry and tasteless (except for the icing) or sometimes really 'eggy' flavoured. I'm not really selling you on this post am I?

However, it was my Boss' Birthday today so I decided to make some vanilla cupcakes because she is not a big sweet tooth but everyone needs cake on their birthday. So now I had the challenge of finding a recipe I could be proud of and that I would eat AND ENJOY myself. I remembered seeing mention of a Foolproof Cupcake Recipe on Raspberri Cupcakes (my fav blog) so I gave it a go.

Immediately it stopped me in my tracks when the first ingredient was mandarin juice... I hesitated...then thought what the hell I'll give it a go. And I am so glad I did! These are the perfect cupcakes, they brown up, round off and are light but not dry. You can't even taste the mandarin juice it just tastes like delicious perfection! The best part of all is that you can just throw all of the ingredients into the food processor and blitz it up in 2 minutes...UH-mazing!

Vanilla Blitz Cupcakes

Recipe adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes

What you will need

1/3 cup mandarin juice
2 eggs
125g unsalted butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
225g self raising flour
1/2 tsp vanilla

What you will need to do

Preheat oven to 180*C and line a muffin tray with baking papers.
Put all ingredients into a food processor and blitz for 2 minutes or until all is combined and smooth. It will be a fairly thick batter. Spoon mixture into baking papers about 1/2 or 2/3 full. Bake in oven for about 15 to 20 minutes or until tops have browned and spring back when touched. Take out of oven and cool on a cooling wire.

I made a quick buttercream icing using 100g of butter and beat it until soft and creamy. I then added about a cup of icing sugar and 1tsp of honey and beat until smooth and creamy. I added more icing sugar until it was the consistency I wanted for piping (not sure how much I used all up). When the cupcakes have cooled decorate them however you please. I piped roses using a large 2D tip.