Mini Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

We had our neighbors over for dinner the other day, and I got a little too excited and made two different desserts for the occasion. I made Mini Vanilla Bean Cupcakes, with Vanilla Bean Butter frosting, and some Oreo Brownies. I'll get to the Oreo Brownies later; today I'll just talk about the cupcakes.

I originally got the idea for the Vanilla Bean frosting from my baking and blog friend, Grannyloohoo. On this post, she mentions a vanilla bean cream frosting, and I immidiately knew I had to make it! I have a large stash of vanilla beans hanging around, so I added the seeds from one bean to a batch of butter frosting. For the cupcakes themselves, I took this recipe and added the seeds from two scraped vanilla beans to the batter. Then I made them into mini cupcakes, and baked for 12 minutes. I got 58 out of the recipe. I frosted the mini cupcakes using a 1M tip, and practiced making different swirly designs on top.

Vanilla Bean Frosting

1/2 cup salted butter, softened

1/2 pound powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped out

1-3 TBS. milk

Cream butter and powdered sugar together. Add vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds. Add milk, a little at a time, until frosting is at desired consistency.

This made enough to frost all of my mini cupcakes, with enough left over to make 4 graham cracker sandwiches. :)