Week 18 Cupcake - Vanilla Bean

The last few weeks have involved some pretty over the top cupcakes.  I still get a little dreamy when I think about the Barefoot Contessa's Peanut Butter Frosting.  This week I decided to go with simplicity itself and make a vanilla cake with vanilla bean frosting.  I had found some vanilla beans for a fairly good price at HomeGoods a few weeks ago and figured this was a perfect way to play with them.  When it comes down to it though I just don't think I'm a vanilla frosting kind of girl.

1. Source: Chef Mommy
2. Ease of Recipe (1 being cake mix/canned icing - 5 tons of steps and very time consuming): 3 maybe.  Pretty easy even though everything was from scratch.

3. Changes Made:  I added extra vanilla bean to the frosting to give a little more of a vanilla kick.

4. Problems:  I think I may have over mixed it a bit because the cake was a smidge of the dry side.

5.  Overall Impression:  These were okay but not amazing.  I think I overmixed the cake because the texture was a little tougher than I wanted it to be.  I think the bigger problem is that I'm just not sold on vanilla buttercreams right now.  I haven't found one that I think the sugar/butter/vanilla balance each other and I seem to get more the taste of powdered sugar than anything else.  I think if I made the cake with a cream cheese frosting with the vanilla beans I'd like it a lot more but that is of course just personal taste.

6. Quantity:  12

7. Make Again?:  I will definitely give the cake another try and be more careful with the mixing but I probably won't make the frosting again.  I may, however, add vanilla beans to a cream cheese frosting.  The more I think about it the more interested I get in the idea actually.