First, I’ll start of with a bit of an introduction as this is my first post! The name’s Aria and I’m a bit of a gamer. I mostly play League of Legends now, though you can catch me playing Smite and various console/PC games. Anyway, I’ll hopefully be helping to contribute to the site from now on!
As for my first post, I’ll be showing off the Poro cupcakes I made for a family Christmas party. The cupcake recipe I used was this and the icing recipe was this, but you can use whatever recipes strike your fancy. These resulted in a vanilla cake that was light and not overly sweet accompanied by a very sweet buttercream icing. The ingredients you’ll need will vary depending on what icing/cupcake recipes you use and the decorations for the actual cupcakes could vary as well. What I used for decorations was coconut, cashews, black store-bought icing, and pink starbursts.
Here’s the list for the TL;DR:
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Cupcake batter (I doubled the recipe):
- 2.5 cups cake flour
- 2.5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 large eggs
- 1.5 cups sugar
- 3 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup canola oil
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 3 cups confectioner sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tablespoons whipping cream
Icing:
To start, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees (or whatever the cupcake recipe you use recommends) and lined the cupcake pans. I used red/green liners to stick with the holiday theme, but use whatever you like for these cute cupcakes!
Next, I prepared the cake batter. You can follow whatever recipe you choose, but as with most baking you want to combine your dry ingredients first (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, etc.) and set that aside to add after you combine your wet ingredients (usually this is creaming of eggs/sugar). You want to slowly beat about half of the dry ingredients at a time into the wet mixture, until you have a smooth cake batter. Don’t forget to scrape the sides of the bowl down to ensure you’ve combined all ingredients thoroughly!
After you’ve combined everything, you’ve got your batter and all you have to do is fill up the cupcake liners and pop the pans in the oven. Depending on what type of cake you’re making depends how much it will rise, but for the recipe I used I filled the liners about halfway. Actual baking time can vary depending on your oven or cake batter used, but these took about 12-14 minutes at 350 degrees. During the bake time I made my icing (which I forgot to take pictures of..)
The cupcakes will have risen and in my case turned a golden brown which helped me know they were ready to get out of the oven. You can also use the old trick of poking one of the cupcakes with a toothpick, and if the toothpick comes out clean, you know they are finished. I removed my cupcakes from the pan immediately to help them cool more quickly, however, it isn’t a requirement. You do want to wait until they are completely cool to add your icing and other decorations, though!
Once your cupcakes have cooled completely, you can ice them and add the rest of the decorations. For me, this involved dipping the tops of the cupcakes in coconut, which stuck nicely to the icing. After this, I added cashews for the Poros’ horns, used the black store-bought icing for the eyes, and the pink starbursts for the tongues. They turned out adorable and delicious! Although no one in my family had any idea what the hell they were, but they enjoyed the cuteness.
Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my first post! Feel free to leave comments with recommendations for future cupcakes or other baked goods.
