Rubber Ducky Cupcakes

For a little Easter fun, Cassidy baked some Rubber Ducky Cupcakes from the book What's New, Cupcake? by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. She made All-Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. The frosting is Vanilla Frosting by Giada De Laurentis's cooking show GIADA AT HOME.

 

Cassidy separates the eggs.

 

There's just no way Cassidy can bake cupcakes on an empty stomach.

Combining the milk, eggs, and vanilla

Cassidy sifts the dry ingredients. Yes, she's using the spaghetti strainer. It works!

Mixing the dry ingredients so the leavening (baking powder) gets fully incorporated.

Adding the butter to the dry ingredients

Mixing! Of course, Baby Cakes is on Mommy's hip and away from that scary mixer!

She adds the egg and milk mixture in three segments, 

allowing the eggs to be completely incorporated.

Busy filling the cupcake liners

Tada!

Cassidy stays busy while the cupcakes are in the oven.

Cassidy naps through CUPCAKE WARS 

while her assistant makes the frosting.

Vanilla frosting

Marshmallow duck tails and doughnut hole duck heads

Cassidy was unable to appear in these photos because she was 

asleep in her daddy's arms while her sous chef assembled the ducks.

Cupcakes dunked in melted yellow frosting

 

M&M eyes and orange Starburst duck bills

The duckies' eyes look a little bugged out! The book called for mini M&Ms, 

but Cassidy just used the regular sized M&Ms that she already had on hand. 

The duck bills are formed from 1/2 a Starburst microwaved for five seconds.

 

Quack! Quack!

All-Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake

6 large egg yolks at room temperature

1 cup milk

2 1/4 tsp vanilla

3 cups sifted cake flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 TBSP + 1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

12 TBSP softened unsalted butter

Step 1: Combine the egg yolks, 1/4 cup milk, and vanilla in a medium bowl.

Step 2: Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Step 3: Add the butter and the remaining milk. Mix for two minutes.

Step 4: Add the egg mixture in three batches.

     Cassidy altered the recipe just a bit. Instead of whole milk, she used buttermilk, mostly because she had it on hand and needed to use it up. Instead of cake flour, she used all-purpose flour, again, because that's what she had in the pantry. Cassidy substituted the butter for margarine. She's been using real butter for all of her recipes, but she recently read that substituting some of the butter in a cake recipe for oil can produce a moister cake. So, she decided just to try all margarine. Besides, it's so much cheaper! 

     Cassidy baked her cupcakes for 18 minutes until a knife inserted came out mostly clean, but the cake still appeared slightly underdone on top. Of all the cake she has baked so far, this recipe was by far the moistest and had the best flavor. It was the perfect cake choice for Rubber Ducky Cupcakes.

Vanilla Frosting

1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup whipping cream

4 tsp vanilla

4 TBSP water

6 cups powdered sugar

Step 1: Combine butter, whipping cream, and vanilla with an electric mixer.

Step 2: Gradually beat in powdered sugar and water until light and creamy.

Cassidy plans to try these cupcakes again sometime, or maybe just another cupcake creature from What's New, Cupcake? The duckies turned out really cute, but she definitely needs a little more practice. It wasn't as easy as it looks!