valentine's day Green Bay Packers & a White Velvet Vanilla Bean Cupcake recipe

Green Bay is still in the playoffs and I had an order for some customized cupcakes for a Green Bay birthday party this past weekend!

valentine's day

valentine's day

For the cupcakes, I made a White Velvet Vanilla Bean cupcake topped with Vanilla Bean Buttercream.  Oh  my goodness, let me tell you... I LOVE this vanilla cupcake recipe! It's dense but not too thick, moist yet still has little bits of cake that crumble with you take a bite and FULL of flavor!

The recipe I used for these cupcakes came from a White Velvet Raspberry cupcake I did a while back... but I vamped it up a little bit by adding sour cream and steeping the milk with a fresh vanilla bean.  YUM!

valentine's day

 This new recipe is also the same recipe I used for these Seahawks 12th Man Cupcakes!

valentine's day

For the White Velvet Vanilla cupcake recipe, visit JavaCupcake.com! 

valentine's day Cupcake cupcake topper on sugar cookie birthday cupcakes!

Blogger Risa at Baked Perfection celebrated her birthday in November by making these fun sugar cookie cupcakes with vanilla frosting and mini cupcake-shaped cupcake toppers! She writes:

Vanilla has to be one of my favorite flavors, if not my favorite. Since I love vanilla so much I decided that was exactly what I wanted for my birthday. The last several years Zack baked my birthday treat, but unfortunately he was out of town for work on my birthday this past year. Several people offered to make me something, but I really wanted to make these cupcakes and that is exactly what I did. They were so delicious! The cupcake was wonderful and the frosting is my absolute favorite frosting. I have to chew gum while making it and decorating or else I eat it straight out of the bowl. I got the idea for the adorable little cupcake toppers (which are frosted mini Reese's cups) from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen.

valentine's day Cupcake review: Au Bon Pain French vanilla, double chocolate and red velvet cupcakes

Last week we told you about the new limited edition cupcakes for sale at the restaurant chain Au Bon Pain, and I can now report on how they taste! You can see more photos in my Flickr set.





I was impressed with all of these cupcakes because not only were they tender and moist, they tasted like what they were supposed to. I can't tell you how many times I've had "vanilla" or "chocolate" cupcakes where all the flavor was in the frosting. That's too much work for frosting. These cupcakes were all delicious and flavorful and very rich; I couldn't finish them, but they're great for sharing.

I think the chocolate would be my favorite of the three; it's rich and dense but not overly sweet, which is something that can easily turn me off from a cupcake. I like the presentation of the cupcakes, too, with chocolate shavings atop the chocolate and red velvet, and little white chocolate chips (I think that's what they are) on top of the French vanilla cupcakes.





I'm not sure how limited "limited time" means, but look for them at Au Bon Pain.




red velvet cupcakes, which have the most calories at 400 each (350 calories for double chocolate cupcake, 320 calories for French vanilla).