(anyone know the source of that title?)

OK, so maybe I’m the pastry chef in the family…?
Because these cupcakes KICKED ASS!!!

So Bear and I were jonesin’ – for cake or cookies or something
and i realized that we actually do have a bunch of baking supplies/ingredients in our pantry

then i thought – hey, this would be a great opportunity to use that awesome cookbook i got!
Off the Shelf: Cooking from the Pantry by Donna Hay
which i purchased because of great endorsements from Serious Eats, My Husband Cooks, Orangette and more
I haven’t used it as much as i would have liked, probably because most of the savory dishes contain ingredients that i don’t actually keep in the pantry/freezer like cannellini beans

HOWEVER, I should have been perusing the dessert section regularly because there is some GREAT stuff in there!

So I found this basic recipe (abbreviated):

Simple Vanilla Cake

250g (8 oz) butter
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted
2.5 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat well. Sift flour and baking powder together and fold into butter mixture.
Pour batter in 8 in square cake tin and bake for 1 hour or until done. Cool on a wire rack. Serves 8-10.

So, nice recipe right? yeah good stuff just a little boring.
plus we didn’t have an 8-inch square baking pan.
and we definitely don’t have 8-10 people to serve!

So I made a few changes

First I decided to make cupcakes! Partly because I love them and partly because it was that or make an extra-thin cake in a 9×13 pan

Then i figured i’d halve the recipe because we only have 1 cupcake pan that makes 6 cupcakes at a time – and no paper liners – and 6 cupcakes is plenty for us anyway

cool, right? Um yeah…

Did you ever notice how hard it is to use half of 3 eggs? yeah…

So i decided to use 2 eggs and a little extra flour (because i like eggs!)

then i threw in some orange zest and chocolate chips just for fun (inspired by another recipe for lemon cake on the same page and because orange and chocolate go so well together!)

and i did them in the toaster oven because the pan fit and it saves electricity – it seemed silly to heat the whole big oven for 6 little cupcakes, don’t you think?

DELISH!

I ROCK!!!