4 from 1 vote

St Patrick’s Day Cupcake

St. Patrick's Day Cupcakes | ZoeBakes photo by Zoë François

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Here is a simple, but delicious St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes recipe to help you celebrate this greenest of holidays. You can watch me bake and decorate these St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes in my Instagram videos. You’ll also see me save a buttercream from ruin and bring it back to fluffy perfection. The art of pastry is being able to fix what goes wrong. And there is a blow torch involved, so that’s fun.

St Patrick’s Day Cupcakes

Here is a simple white cake that is a wonderful base for just about any occasion. It has a faint vanilla flavor and is perfect when you don't want a lot of competition for the frosting and other flavors you are adding to your cake. Because it only uses egg whites, the color is as pure white as you are going to find in a cake. It will let the colors of your frosting or other layers shine.
4 from 1 vote
Course: cupcakes
Cuisine: Dessert

Ingredients

White Cake

  • 1 cup oil
  • 300 g sugar
  • 5 large egg whites
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 230 g all-purpose flour
  • 100 g cake flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup milk

Buttercream

  • 1 cup egg whites about 8 egg whites
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 pounds unsalted butter room temperature
  • Pinch salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • Zest of 2 limes
  • Zest of 2 lemons
  • Juice of 1 lime

Instructions

  • Heat oven to 350°F. Prepare 12 muffin cups with cupcake liners.
  • In the bowl of a mixer, combine the oil, sugar, egg whites and vanilla with a paddle attachment on medium speed until well combined.
  • In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add half the flour to the oil mixture and mix just until combined. Add all of the milk, stirring to combine. Add the remaining flour and mix only until all flour is combined.
  • Bake for about 25-30 minutes or just until a tester comes out with moist crumb. Cool while you make the buttercream.
  • Buttercream: In the bowl of your stand mixer combine the egg whites and sugar. It will be very thick and grainy.
  • Put the bowl over a double boiler and stir it with a rubber spatula until the sugar is completely melted. This can take several minutes. You want to brush the sides down with the spatula to make sure all the sugar is melted and no grains are clinging to the sides.
  • Feel the egg mixture between your fingers to check for graininess. Once it is completely smooth and has no grains left, put it on your stand mixer and beat with the whip attachment on medium high speed.
  • Beat it until it is light, fluffy, glossy and the bowl feels just about room temperature. If the whites are not cooled off sufficiently it will melt the butter when you add it.
  • Once the egg whites are whipped and cooled, add the butter to it, 2 tablespoons at a time on medium speed. IMPORTANT: After you have added about half of the butter, it may look curdled and runny, this is normal and you should continue adding the rest of the butter.
  • Once you have finished adding the butter and it has mixed on medium speed for about a minute the buttercream should be creamy and glossy looking again.*
  • Add the salt, vanilla, zest and juice.

Notes

*If the buttercream is still runny at this point, it may be that your butter or egg whites were too warm. Just place the bowl in the refrigerator for about 3 minutes and stir, then repeat in the refrigerator for another 3 minutes and stir. This will chill the butter, but the stirring will prevent it from solidifying too much. Repeat this until it is the right consistency.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Share this post

5 thoughts to “St Patrick’s Day Cupcake”

  1. Planning to make these Sunday! I’d love to watch the video, but I can’t find it. The link brings me to Instagram, but I just don’t see a video of these cupcakes – would appreciate any help from others!

    1. Hi Paula! This is an older recipe, so the Instagram highlight had been archived! We moved it to the front of Zoë’s Instagram so you can find it more easily and here is a link as well. Enjoy! Please come back and let us know how they went. Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating