THE Best White Cupcake and Real Buttercream

So..... how is everyone? Sorry it's been a bit since my last post. This one will completely make up for it though. I promise. It's the best recipe I've found for a white cupcake/cake.

But first, how about a little intro:

Our church does a ministry called Room In the Inn. I don't know if yours does this but I suggest looking into it. During the winter months, once a week we bring in some men from the homeless shelter, feed them a delicious home cooked meal, help them with clothing and other resources, and share God's love with them by serving them. It's such an overwhelming experience to have dinner with and talk to these men, most of whom are just down on their luck. They stay overnight at our church and we feed them breakfast and do a devotion time with them. I wish it was something we could do more often and the rest of the world would do too. I know we're not the only church to do this but wouldn't it be great if we could help all those living on the streets?

My Sunday School class was signed up to volunteer and I jumped right on it. My husband had to work but the girls and I love to do stuff like this. I helped in the kitchen while my girls helped with setting up the dining tables to look just like a restaurant. The other part I signed up for was bringing a dessert. I figured everyone likes white cake so I went with my favorite recipe.
 It can be found  HERE with Recipe Girl. I know it's not from scratch but I can tell you I've tried many different recipes, scratch and box, and this one is THE best one I've found.

I chose to make them into minis and pair them with my favorite frostings, vanilla and chocolate buttercream. I don't want to take any credit from Recipe Girl so I'm not going to post her delicious recipe on here. You'll have to click on this LINK to try her recipe. I don't want to be bossy but if I were you, I'd go make these today. They're moist and have the perfect doming on top.

But I will share the recipe for my favorite frosting. Everything is good with real butter and the heavy cream gives it that extra little richness. My mouth is salivating just thinking about it.

REAL Buttercream:

• two sticks of no salt butter, softened
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 4 c. powdered sugar
• approx. 2-5 tbsp. heavy cream

First, you want to cream your butter for about 3-5 minutes. You'll see that the color starts to lighten. Then, turn off your mixer and add your powdered sugar, vanilla and 2 tbsp. heavy cream. Start  your mixer on low until it starts to combine or you're going to have white powder everywhere. Let it mix and add more heavy cream as needed for the consistency you want. Remember you can always add more so do a little at a time.

Now if you want to make it chocolate buttercream, just add 1/4 c. cocoa powder and a little more cream to it. I tend to like mine extra chocolaty so sometimes I'll even do a 1/2 c. cocoa. Yum!

One more tip before I go: If you need to transport your cupcakes somewhere and don't want to buy a bunch of those boxes with the inserts, put your cupcakes in like a honeycomb. See below.

They stay all compact and don't let each other move around much in your box. This can be very helpful when you have a bunch of minis to take to a party or to school or something.

Since I missed Valentine's Day, I'm going to end with one of my favorite scriptures about love.

1 John 4:7 "Dear friends, let us love one another; for love comes from God."

Blessings.
Pamela