customizable cupcakes

Cupcakes a.k.a. how to lie to your friends and make them believe you are a pro at baking!

They’re the quintessential party food, and bring the fun of every situation! Even – for example – a sad, bleak Tuesday at your office, when you have baked too many and so decided to give diabetes to all your coworker as first thing in the morning… Suuure, cupcakes are totally breakfast food Karen, don’t worry!

Anyhow, on the internet it seems like there is one specific recipe for each single variant, which is super inconvenient if you want to make more than one flavor from the same batch.

So, I have decided to do some research and, indeed, the base for a cupcake is a simple pound cake batter, which in Italian is also knows as a four fourths cake (torta quattro quarti). This means that you only need same quantities of flour, butter, sugar and eggs.

To this, you just need to add your flavors (cocoa, vanilla, lemon, nuts etc.) and counterbalance by adding more liquid (milk).

For this recipe, I used the same basic batter to make 3 different flavors: chocolate, vanilla&lemon, and red velvet. I will use the same buttercream frosting of the chocolate and the vanilla&lemon one, but the classic cream-cheese for the red velvet.

Might sound a bit complicated, but it’s really easy! The perfect recipe for minimum effort, maximum “wow” effect!

customizable cupcakes

Prep time: 1 hOUR

Total time: 1 HOUR 18 MIN [1 HOUR PREP TIME + 18 cook time]

Ingredients – 15 cupcakes (5 per each flavor)

FOR THE CUPCAKES BASE

• 250 g of granulated sugar
• 250 g of softened butter
• 5 eggs (approx. 50g each)
• 225 g of flour
• 8 g of baking powder
• 30g of milk

FOR 5 CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES – to add to 1/3 of the base

• 15 g of cocoa powder
• 10 g of chocolate chips
• 30 g of milk

FOR 5 VANILLA&LEMON CUPCAKES – to add to 1/3 of the base

• 10 g of ground lemon peel
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla essence
• 5 g of milk

FOR 5 RED VELVET CUPCAKES – to add to 1/3 of the base

• 7 g of cocoa powder
• 10 g of milk
• red food colorant

FOR THE FROSTING

FOR the buttercream – to top the 5 chocolate and 5 Vanilla&Lemon

• 250 g of butter
• 300 g of powdered sugar
• 20 g of milk

FOR the CREAM-CHEESE FROSTING – to top the 5 red velvet

• 30 g of butter
• 100 g of creamcheese
• 120 g of powdered sugar

Directions

1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

2. Add the eggs once at a time, and beat together until you have a foamy mixture.

3. Add the flour and baking powder, mix together. Lastly, add the milk and mix. This will be your base batter for the 3 types of cupcakes.

4. Preheat the oven at 180 C° or 350 F°. Divide the batter in 3 parts. To one third, add the cocoa powder, chocolate chips and milk for the chocolate cupcakes.

5. To one third, add the lemon peel, vanilla and milk for the vanilla&lemon ones.

6. To the last third, add the cocoa powder, red colorant and milk for the red velvet ones.

7. Scoop the batter in cupcake molds and bake for around 18 minutes or until a stick inserted in one of them will come out clean.

8. In the meantime, prepare your butter and cream-cheese frosting. Starting from the butter one, cream the butter, sugar and milk together until smooth.

9. For the cream-cheese frosting, cream together the cheese, butter and sugar.

10. Take out the cupcakes from the oven and wait until they are completely cooled down. Starting from the red ones, take one cupcake and reduce it to crumbs. Top the other red cupcakes with the cheese-cream frosting, and decorate them with the crumbs.

11. For the chocolate ones, top them with the buttercream frosting and add some chocolate sprinkles.

12. Lastly, top also the vanilla&lemon ones with the buttercream frosting. Sprinkle them with some lemon peel crumbs and sugar decorations.

13. And there you have it, your 3 flavors customized cupcakes!

I have to say I am quite satisfied of the result. Not only they are super easy and convenient, but also really delicious.

Be sure to store them in the fridge for up to 3 days, but that won’t be much of a problem: mine magically disappeared in half a day!