Ombré Vanilla Cupcakes

As everyone has been head over heels with the ongoing ombré trend for quite a while now and I really like colour gradients as well, I decided to give classic vanilla cupcakes a twist frosting them with an ombré look. Here's my recipe - maybe you'll use those snowy days for baking delicious treats? :)

Love, Julie.

Ingredients: (for 12 cupcakes)

120g Flour

140g Sugar

1½ tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

40g Butter (at room temperature)

120ml Milk (the original recipe contains whole milk but the fat free version worked also well ;)

1 Egg

¼ tsp Vanilla extract

Frosting:

250g icing/powdered sugar (sifted)

80g Butter

25ml Milk

Some drops of vanilla extract

(optionally: food colouring)

1.) Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas mark 3.
2.) Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a bowl and beat on slow speed using the electric mixer until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined.
3.) Gradually pour in half the milk and beat until the milk is just incorporated.
4.) Whisk the egg, vanilla extract and remaining milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds, then pour into the flour mixture and continue beating until the mixture is smooth. Do not overmix.
5.) Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full and bake in the preheated oven for 18–20 minutes, or until light golden and the sponge bounces back when touched.

6.) For the frosting beat the icing sugar and butter together with an electric mixer on medium-slow speed until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.

7.) Turn the mixer down to slow speed. Combine the milk and vanilla extract in a separate bowl, then add to the butter mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time.

8.) Once all the milk has been incorporated, turn the mixer up to high speed. Beat until the frosting is light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes). The longer the frosting is beaten, the fluffier and lighter it becomes.

For an ombré look put half of the frosting aside and add some drops of food colouring. Then frost half of the cupcake with the original icing and the other half with the coloured one. Use a palette-knife or butter knife to mix those two. It gets best if you revolve the icing in slow circles, stretching one colour into the other.

I pretty much stuck to the original Hummingbird Bakery recipe here because I wanted to try my new cookbook.