Baking Week Two: Miniature

Week two of the baking challenge was all about miniatures.  I went simple and made mini white cupcakes (with store bought frosting. 

The boy's favorite is white cake with Betty Crocker's Rainbow Chip frosting so I made these for him.  Since I don't know how to get the chips that Betty Crocker uses in this frosting I wound up with from scratch cupcakes and store bought frosting.  Still delicious. 

For the cake batter I used a recipe in a collection that my mom made for me a few years back.  For a birthday gift she gave me "Marina's Cake Collection" which was a collection of cake, torte, frosting, and filling recipes in addition to things like common cake mishaps, and measurements.  The particular recipe I used was for Colette Peter's White Cake. 

My note to you all before starting the recipe.  If you use a stand mixer (like I do) I recommend beating the egg whites first and switching it to another bowl to do the rest in the mixer.  Beating egg whites by hand is a PITA and mine completely failed because I got some yolk in them.  Going along with this though is that the cupcakes turned out just fine despite this. 

Ingredients:
2 3/4 c. of flour
1/2 tsp. salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. room temp milk
1 1/2 c. sugar
4 egg whites
3/4 butter (softened is best)

Grease mini muffin tins (or use papers, but I discovered I didn't have any mini liners)

Cream butter until light.  Her recipe called for vegetable shortening but I refuse to use the stuff. 

Slowly add 1 c. of the sugar, beating until fluffy.  Add vanilla extract.

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together.  Add 1 Tbsp, of this to the butter mixture and mix well.  Then add 1 Tbsp. of the milk to the butter mixture and mix well.  Continue alternating until well combined.  I was using heaping Tbsp. of the flour mixture and it worked well. 

In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  Slowly add remaining 1/2 c. of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Fold this into the batter carefully. 

Bake in preheated 325 degree oven for around 18 minutes.  My oven cooks quickly so it only takes about 14 minutes in my oven, but my reading to determine how long to cook it for suggests the first time. 

This makes about 4.5 dozen mini cupcakes.