Bitchin' in the Kitchen

So against my better judgement, I committed to doing another dessert swap.  See, it's not that I don't love me some desserts, it's just that I always overlook how much work it is.  I do this with my friends around Christmas with cookies and it's always fabulous.  Well maybe not fabulous for the fit of my pants, but alas, it's a great time that yields some delicious cookies.  Last month I decided I would do another swap, this time the focus would be cupcakes.  Each person makes X amount of cupcakes based on the number attending, we display them and bitch about how much work they were, then everyone takes their allotted amount and eats as many as possible so they don't have to share with their children or husbands.

This evening was my first attempt at baking anything in mass quantity since the birth of Baby 2.0.  I give you:

Vanilla rainbow cupcakes with nutella cream cheese frosting

PART I

(approximately 100,001 calories per bite)

FOR ZE CAKE I used a William Sonoma cake recipe and then made them rainbow:

3 eggs, 1.5 tsp vanilla, 1.5 cups cake flour, 3/4 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt, 12 tbs unsalted butter, 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup milk.

1. Start with all of the ingredients room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 350.  Since you didn't plan ahead of time, you now have about an hour or so to kill before you can even start since your ingredients are ice cold.  I turned off my oven because I had a long time before it was going to be used.  Welcome to the club.  If you are responsible, hang out with your kids, play with your dog, do some laundry.  If you are me, get a beer and get on Pintrest...tell husband you are balancing the checkbook.  He won't know.
2.  When the ingredients are finally at the proper temp, whick together the eggs and vanilla until blended.  In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.  Take a sip of your beer; you deserve it after all the whisking and sifting.  Whew.
3.  Beat the butter on medium-high speed until light and creamy...this takes about three minutes.  I used my Kitchenaid, so I had three more minutes to drink my beer and do some pinning. 
4. Gradually add the sugar and beat until fluffy...another three minutes or so.  More beer.  More pinning.
5. Add egg mixture and beat until well combined...about a minute.  Finish your beer.  Get another if time permits.  I'm dieting so I switched to water with lime.  I'm jealous of you.
6. Turn your beater down to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour.  Mix until juuuuust incorporated.  Don't overmix.   

To make them rainbowlicious, separate the mix into different bowls.  I used  Wilton icing tints to dye the batter different colors.  Using a spoon, add dollops of the different colors into muffin cups.  Swirl them around poke them, or just leave it alone if you are in a hurry.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Enjoy the ride.

Because nothing says "acid trip" like rainbow cupcakes.

Raw.  Although tempting, do not treat these as if they are Trix yogurt cups.

Cooked and cooling.  And my sweet Christmas potholder from 1987 is peaking out to say "hey!"

The innards.

I'm too tired to ice these bad boys tonight, so my nutella cream cheese frosting post (and the results of the cupcake swap) will be another post.  These cupcakes, sans icing, are very very good and very moist.  They will go very good with my breakfast of coffee and paczkis tomorrow.

Now I have to go load three days worth of dirty dishes into my not-high-capacity dishwasher.