Hola!

You have probably noticed my absence over the past two weeks and I do apologize but I am on vacation! My sister Chloé and I went to Marbella with Gabriel and his family and we're all having a blast!
The weather is amazing and I love spending all this time at the beach with my beloved ones. We basically spend all our days down by the sea and I'm enjoying it so much! The Spanish food is delicious, too, Gabriels mamá is probably the best cook I know (besides my mum) and I'm learning a lot from her... :)
I guess I won't be having too much time for blogging during the rest of my vacation which is the next 2 weeks and I apologise for that in advance...
I promise I'll be back with some super delicious new recipes soon!

xxx Allison

The Magnolia Vanilla Cupcake

Today is my little sister's birthday (Happy birthday, Chloé!!! Gosh, 18, I feel like you were running around the house playing fairy and bewitching anything that crossed your way just yesterday...) and since we were in New York on her birthday last year and she loved the cupcakes at the Magnolia Bakery so I decided to try and make her some of my own.
I actually used the original vanilla cupcake recipe I found on Popsugar.com (click here to watch the video).
Now, obviously my cupcakes weren't quite as delicious as the original Magnolia ones, but they were really good even though I did improvise a little bit with the icing and used cocoa instead of food colour. Oh, and that red blotch on the icing is supposed to be a heart... It definitely looks better from above!
So, here's the recipe:

Ingredients (12 cupcakes):
- 110g butter (room temperature)
- 2 large eggs
- 120ml whole milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 90g self-raising flour
- 75g cake flour
- 225g sugar


Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.
2. Mix all dry ingredients (flour, sugar) in a bowl.
3. Chop the butter into cubes and gradually add it to the mixture. You should have a sand-like consistency.
4. In another bowl, whisk the eggs. Add half of them into the mixture.
5. Add the milk and the vanilla extract to the remaining bit of the eggs and pour the mixture into the other bowl. Keep mixing on medium speed for 2 minutes.
6. Scoop the batter into the cupcake pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:
- 115g butter (room temperature)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 250g icing sugar
- 3 tbsp milk (if you use cocoa like me, you will need a little more)
- 2 tbsp cocoa / food colouring

1. Cream the butter and add the vanilla extract.
2. Gradually add the sugar. When the mixture starts to thicken, add a little milk.
3. Beat for about 2-3 minutes, then add the cocoa or food colouring and, if needed, more milk.


And you're done!

I feel like my icing was a little too thin because I added too much milk, but apart from that it was pretty good. I have to admit I'm not a fan of the original butter cream frosting just because it's so sweet but if you don't eat more than one cupcake at a time, it's perfectly fine. ;)

What's your favourite birthday cake?


xo Allison