Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes

I still haven't made Mila's birthday cake.

I KNOW.

I'm a week overdue, but for some reason she's okay with it? It's probably because I made ALL of the cupcakes for her party and she happily munched on the extras for several days. I'm going to pull my life together this week and make good on the elaborate panda cake she requested, but first let's remember that these vanilla cupcakes are AMAZING.

They bake up very perfectly in that they are a little dense, very rounded, and behave exactly like you want cupcakes to behave if you're going to decorate them.

And they taste good. Like, really good. Better than boxed BY FAR.

Blackberry Vanilla Cupcakes

(makes 24 cupcakes)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Blackberry Buttercream Frosting
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup blackberries
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of one lemon
5 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake pan with super cute liners of your choice.

2. Place the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Stir them up with a whisk.

3. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla.

4. Put the wet ingredients in the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix at low speed until just combined.

5. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when you poke at a cupcake.

6. To make the frosting, place all but the powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl. Mix at low speed for about 30 seconds then at higher speed until the blackberries are well mashed. Slowly add the powdered sugar and keep mixing until it's all combined and happy.

7. Top your cooled cupcakes with that frosting then top it all with a bunch of fancy sprinkles. Bonus points if you add a white chocolate star on top, but that's not really necessary.

Not-At-All-Crazy Fact: This Was Alexis' 14th Recital

Dance recitals are essentially just another day ending in "y" for Alexis, but I suppose I should still post photos from her most recent one? Maybe?

She has 8 or 9 dances this year. You would think I would know exactly how many she has, but counting that high is effort. So, no thank you. Also, there's a small group thing that she's an alternate for and I genuinely don't know whether or not to count that. I paid for the costume and she'll be performing at nationals, so maybe? Whatever.

ANYWAY. My favorite of all of her dances this year is her acro dance, mostly because they open it upside down and stay that way, doing various poses/handstands, for like 60 seconds. It's so ridiculous because I do not understand how a group of humans can do that. And they do it perfectly synchronized (though, a camera has a magical ability to capture them not being quite perfectly synchronized).

Also, flips. I like flips. Alexis is the upside-down kid in this one.

There isn't really much else to say about her recitals. Alexis has been dancing forever. She's good at it, though she will quickly tell you she's not THAT good. It's a point of contention around these parts lately.

I'd say more about that, but that would cause Alexis to dig in her heels more on the topic so instead LOOK HOW LOVELY SHE IS. (Far left.)

I mean, they're all lovely once you get to this level.

Which makes it infinitely more fun to watch.

Because after a weekend of watching recitals for kids of all ages, I can tell you that I will stick to the advanced high school kids, plus Mila. All the rest? Not my thing.

But that may just be the "I watched over 8 hours of dance in two days" talking.

Anyway, well done, Alexis. I'm looking forward to nationals, especially the part where there's a few days I'll be spending at the beach instead of watching dance. :-D

Crazy Fact: This Was Mila's Fourth Recital

Given that Mila has spent the past two days gnawing on my every last nerve, let's lose ourselves in cute photos of her, mmkay? See, in this photo, you totally can't tell that she leaves a trail of chaos behind her ALL OVER THE FREAKIN HOUSE.

Cute, right?

That's almost enough to make me forget that the child trashed the living room three days in a row and then "forgot" to go pick everything up when I fussed at her for it. Almost.

ANYWAY. Recital weekend was a few weekends ago. I still have to hand it to our dance studio because they manage to make 1000 dancers performing not quite as painful as it could be. They spread all the kids out over 9 or so recitals this year. While Alexis was in 5 of those, Mila was only in one (which happened to be one that Alexis wasn't in hahahalolololsigh). And HOOBOY did Mila make the most out of that one.

She had three dances because once you're giving your entire paycheck to a dance studio for one kid, you might as well let the other kid take whatever classes she wants. Mila likes hip hop best, but jazz/gym is rapidly growing on her.

Ballet is her least favorite which is how we know that Mila is still Mila. We also know Mila is still Mila because she manages to goof off during every single dance class (seriously, she's known for meowing at the other dancers and then falling over in a fit of giggles) and yet knows the dances. Like, she's sort of good? Maybe? It's really hard to tell because she doesn't take anything seriously enough for me to figure out if she is genuinely an overachiever or just really stinkin' cute.

(Mila is on the far right.)

Let's go with really stinkin' cute just because I don't need two of them doing the competitive thing. At least not yet.