Vanilla ‘Gender Reveal’ Cupcakes

One of the cool things about going back to work and starting at a new school has been making some awesome new friends! One of my lovely new friends Ashle is expecting her first baby in a couple of months, after her 20 week scan I whipped up some ‘gender reveal cupcakes’ for a bit of fun and shared them with colleagues at an after school meeting. If you are expecting or have a friend who is this might be a neat way to reveal the sex of your baby to friends and family.

Ingredients:
Cupcakes
3 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons vanilla bean paste
½ cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk

Buttercream:
250g butter softened
5 cups icing sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
blue or pink food colouring

Method:
Preheat your oven to 180°C. Prepare two cupcakes/muffin pans by lining them with (gender neutral!) cupcake papers.
In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set flour mixture aside.
In another bowl/bowl of your electric mixer add the butter and vanilla paste. Using the paddle attachment, beat the butter and vanilla mixture on a medium-high speed. Until light and fluffy
Add the sugar to the butter mixture, one cup at a time. Beat for about 1 minute after each cup.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Add about one third of your buttermilk and mix to the butter mix before adding your a third of your flour mix flour mixture ensuring it has been incorporated properly after each addition. Continue to add the liquid and flour mixture until it all has been added to the cupcake batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking cup liners about two thirds of the way through.
Bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer can be inserted into the centre of each cupcake comes out clean or they ‘spring back’ when touched.
Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack. Let cupcakes cook completely before decorating.

Decorating instructions:
To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. At this stage you can either add the colouring to your mix and beat it in or divide your mix and colour so that you end up with a variety of colours.
To make the cupcakes ‘gender reveal cupcakes’, remove about ¾ of the vanilla frosting and add it to an icing bag. With the remaining ¼ of the frosting, add either blue or pink food colouring for the cupcakes’ centre filling. Once completely blended, add blue/pink frosting to a second icing bag.
Using a cupcake corer tool (if you are lucky enough to own one) or a small sharp knife, cut a hole on the top centre of each cupcake.
Remove the cupcake ‘core’ and fill with blue or pink frosting.
Add cupcake core back to the top of the cupcake and pat it down.
Frost the top of the cupcake with the white vanilla frosting, to get the swirl look that I achieved I recommend  Wilton 1M tip.