Today, I made rose mini-cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream and ground pistachios! They were really pretty fantastic. I basically just used 1 tbsp vanilla paste in place of the vanilla extract in a plain ol’ yellow cake recipe, added 4 tbsp rose water to the batter, and used oil instead of vegan margarine (I use eggs, but not butter, for complex dietary reasons, and I have found recently that I get fluffier cakes if I use oil). The icing is just a standard butter icing with that same vanilla paste added, as much as you want (and I want a lot, because vanilla is fantastic), piped on top and garnished with lovely green ground pistachios.
Oh, also, welcome to my new baking, cooking, and crafting blog. Hello. You may also, if you so desire, check out my film rhetoric blog, although there isn’t much there as yet. It is, needless to say, entirely dissimilar from this one. I doubt film rhetoric tastes very good. Don’t chew on that. Get that out of your mouth.
Hurray for food blogs! I love your cupcake idea; they look very cute and very tasty. Where can you buy vanilla paste? I’ve looked for it in the past but haven’t been able to find any.
I got the vanilla paste at Central Market. It was about the same price as a bottle of the same size of decent-quality vanilla extract (about ten bucks), so I was, needless to say, really pleased. And it tastes light years better!