The Ultimate High Altitude Cupcake Recipe

The ONE thing I don't love about living in the mountains is the frequent baking failures. My house is at 6000 feet above sea level, and I've seen about 7 or 8 spectacular baking failures as a result. The thinner air provides less support for the cake as it rises, leading to very sick-looking cupcakes.

Secret: I've been using boxed mixes as a foolproof base for some of my cupcakes. I jazz them up with some pudding, or sour cream, or buttermilk, but I still feel guilty about using anything from a box.

But TODAY! Today, I found a from-scratch ALTITUDE-PROOF vanilla cupcake recipe! It rises beautifully, cooks for the right amount of time, tastes yummy and fluffy. I'm sure it would work at sea level, too... But you guys could make any cupcake from any recipe so whatever.

I topped it with some spiced honey buttercream, a delicate flavor for the more mature cupcake consumer.

Altitude-Proof Vanilla Cupcake

Adapted from How Sweet It Is

Makes 12 cupcakes

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 whole eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Add half of the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Add the milk. Once mixed, add remaining dry ingredients.

Line muffin tins with cupcake liners and fill about 2/3 with cupcake batter. Bake cupcakes for 18-20 minutes, or until tops of cupcakes spring back when touched.

Spiced Honey Buttercream

Frosts 12 cupcakes

1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
Milk, if needed

Beat butter with electric mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time, and beat until smooth. Add honey, vanilla and cinnamon, adjusting to taste. If too thick, add milk one tsp at a time until desired consistency is reached.

Snickerdoodle Cookie Cupcakes

 I'M GOING PRO.

This is my big moment as a baker -- I'm getting paid to make treatssss. I'm making a dessert spread for a neighbor's party, and I'm starting to test recipes to make sure they're perfect.

This recipe is a crowd-pleaser; the cookie crust at the bottom really brings out the snickerdoodle vibe. I'm still working on the texture of the cake itself, because altitude can seriously cause some problems. But the taste of this recipe is excellent, excellent.

These cupcakes are lovely. We've really come a long way from this, huh... Those cupcakes prompted my mother to say, "Hannah, people are expecting those to taste bad." 

DON'T MAKE THAT DISGUSTED FACE

ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME

#YOLO

Recipe:

Slightly adapted from How Sweet Eats.


Snickerdoodle Cookie Cupcakes
makes 12-14 cupcakes
cookie layer
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon milk, if needed

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Beat butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth. Add egg and vanilla, mixing well until combine, about 2 minutes. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Mix until dough comes together. Add in milk 1 tsp at a time until dough comes together.
Refrigerate dough while you make cupcake batter.

cake layer
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 whole eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Add half of the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Add the milk. Once mixed, add remaining dry ingredients.
Line muffin tins with cupcake liners and add about 1 1/2 tablespoons of cookie dough in the bottom of the liner. Even out the dough with the back of a non-stick sprayed spoon. Using an ice cream scoop, drop batter (about 2 heaping tablespoons worth) on top of cookie dough mixture. Bake cupcakes for 15-18 minutes.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp cinnamon

Add butter and cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until fluffy and combined. Gradually add in powdered sugar and vanilla, mixing on medium speed and scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add cinnamon and mix until combined.

I amped up the cinnamon in the frosting from the original recipe for a nice kick of flavor. For me, frosting is a preference kind of thing -- add ingredients until the texture and taste are just right. Be careful not to add too much cinnamon, however, or it'll get chalky.

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

These cupcakes are outrageously good.

Buttery, crumbly graham cracker crust on the bottom, light vanilla cake, and a dollop of tart key lime cream cheese frosting to top it off.

How good are they?
I once watched a friend eat six of these cupcakes. In 45 minutes.
I ate two of these, right out of the oven, even before the frosting.
My dad's coworker sent him a lengthy e-mail extolling the virtues of these cupcakes.

SERIOUSLY JUST MAKE THESE ALREADY OKAY

Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

Makes 24 cupcakes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Graham crust:
10 graham cracker sheets
10 oz butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar

Finely crush 10 graham cracker sheets in a ziploc bag. A round glass or rolling pin works well for this.

Melt butter and combine with graham cracker crumbs and sugar in medium bowl until well-mixed.

Press about 2 tbsp crumbs into bottom of cupcake liners.

Vanilla cupcake:

Use boxed mix or preferred basic vanilla cupcake. I haven't found a fool-proof vanilla cupcake recipe yet, so for now, I always choose Duncan Hines mix.

On top of the graham crust, fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full with batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 18-20 minutes.

Key Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

16 oz cream cheese, softened
8 oz butter, softened
2-3 tbsp key lime juice
3-4 cups powdered sugar

 Beat cream cheese and butter with electric mixer until fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Mix in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.

Add key lime juice, 1 tbsp at a time, until desired flavor is reached. If the frosting becomes thinner with the addition of the juice, add 1 more cup of powdered sugar.

Pudding shots

This may be the pinnacle of my baking experience:

Alcoholic pudding.

And it's not just a hint of alcohol; you'll definitely feel the effects of these babies.

I made vanilla, chocolate fudge, and cookies-and-cream pudding shots using cake-flavored vodka. I think my favorite was the cookies and cream, but maybe that's because I put less vodka in that one. I topped these cuties with a dollop of whipped cream and some sprinkles (of course).

These are easiest to eat with a spoon, because the pudding itself is pretty thick.

Recipe:

Adapted from Endless Simmer

• 1 3.9oz Instant Vanilla (or any flavor) Pudding
• ¾ cup milk, cold
• 2/3 cup Cake Vodka
• 12 oz Cool Whip

Whisk pudding and milk together in a bowl until smooth. Mix in cake vodka and then fold in cool whip. Adjust proportions of milk and vodka according to taste, craziness of party, and current BAC.

Two Pies

 Key lime pie, with fresh whipped cream

Mud pie with graham crust, chocolate pudding and cool whip

Re: Blog theory

 Let's get a little philosophical here.

Turns out I'm not naturally one of those once-daily bloggers, or even a biweekly blogger. Turns out that I'm more of a unimonthly blogger. This strategy works only moderately well, because I'll have four or five new baking adventures to discuss in every post, which isn't quite the most exciting way to present information. Blogs provide single servings of information, the perfect size for quick consumption (a la Fight Club's single-serving friends.) Blogs aren't cookbooks with discrete chapters of recipes, and I've undertaken the responsibility of contributing to the entropy of the food blog world.

So, instead of recipe conglomerates, we'll move into single-serving posts, with single topics.

In the meantime, here's a single serving of a very cute dog.