Blueberry Cupcakes

What is the difference between a cupcake and a muffin? Here's a link that provides some insight. My favorite part was this test: if you throw it against the wall, and it goes *poof*, it's a cupcake. If it goes *thud*, it's a muffin.

I ask this as I make blueberry cupcakes because, as far as I can tell, they could easily be blueberry muffins.

Here's how my week went:

On Monday, I made yellow cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting. See above post because I am not creating a hyperlink to it.

On Tuesday, I told Stephanie not to let me bake more cupcakes until I got rid of the 112 mini cupcakes in my fridge.

I had a killer day on Wednesday and baked these when I got home from work, despite making myself accountable to someone and worrying a little that I was turning into Crazy Cupcake Lady (better than Crazy Cat Lady, but not by much).

Side Note: From the now defunct TV show Pushing Daisies, I learned the phrase "stress baking." I think that's what I do. It's definitely what I did on Wednesday night, Monday night, Thursday afternoon, and Friday night. I feel like it's better than stress eating. However, stress eating is much easier. When I'm done stress baking, I either have to become a stress eater or find some way to get rid of all the stuff I've baked. In a perfect world, I guess I would hook up with a stress eater. In the meantime, I've spent a lot of time this last week thinking of people I know who could use cupcakes. Fortunately, I haven't found anyone yet who has turned down cupcakes.

Thursday, I finally got rid of all the yellow cupcakes.

Friday, I got my theory of therapy paper to its required page length. I now have two weeks to refine it before I have to turn it in. I also made creme brulee, which is a subject for another post.

Saturday, I confessed my sins to Stephanie.

Here's the recipe, which I could not find on Martha's website:

Blueberries-and-Cream Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 3/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups milk, room temperature

2 cups fresh blueberries, plus more for garnish (I bought a quart, and it seemed to be enough)

whipped cream

There are a few things you can count on when you make a Martha Stewart cupcake recipe:

• You'll preheat the oven to 350 and line your muffin tins with liners. Don't even think about trying to just spray your tins with Pam.

• Then you'll combine all the dry ingredients, one of which will be cake flour.

• Then you'll cream butter (which is always unsalted) and sugar, and add eggs and vanilla, beating after each egg. You'll probably marvel at how many eggs one of Martha's recipes requires. You may feel the urge to jump on the treadmill.

• Then you'll alternate adding the dry ingredients and milk (about a third at a time) until everything is combined.

Washing the berries and folding them in is the last thing you do before you bake the muffins. I also picked some rogue stems off of them before I stirred them into the batter.

Bake the standard cupcakes for about 25 minutes, or the minis for 15 minutes. Martha also likes you to rotate the cupcakes halfway through baking. Sometimes I don't, just so I can sit back and laugh defiantly. Take that, Martha!

I picked this recipe because it called for fresh blueberries, which I can get at my grocery store for fairly cheap. I figure I'll do all the recipes that call for fresh berries while they are in season, and move onto zucchini, pumpkin, and sweet potato recipes in the fall.

Here are the cupcakes balanced on the sink in my kitchen. Pretty exciting.

This time around, I got wise and baked mostly standard sized cupcakes first, and then, with the remaining batter, did two batches of mini-cupcakes because Martha suggests garnishing a cupcake tray with a few mini-cupcakes is a good thing.

After the cupcakes are cool, put a dollop of whipped cream on each one, and garnish with fresh berries.

I went to Michael's last week and found cupcake boxes that were so cute, I couldn't resist. If I were to start my own bakery, these would not even be close to cost-effective. However, to take them to a friend for her birthday, this box was perfect:

Substitutions: I still use imitation vanilla instead of pure vanilla extract, but I have started using unsalted butter, even though I think it's kind of stupid.

Equipment purchased: I was in Bed Bath and Beyond and discovered a fabulous set of cupcake equipment, including a standard sized pan (I only have one), a mini pan (which is twice the size of the one I have) a 9x13 inch pan, and this fabulous carrying case and tray:

The tray has holes for 12 standard cupcakes or 24 mini cupcakes. However, if you just put them directly into the carrying case, you can fit a lot more, which is what I did to get them to Relief Society for my lesson, and then to Stephanie's house, and, finally, to the house of some guys in my branch for a game night. This might possibly be the best investment I have ever made.