Akram's Ideas
Akram's Ideas: French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes

French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes

I was recently asked by my sister to make cupcakes for my niece’s 2nd birthday. I thought how sweet, sure. Then she said she needed six dozen cupcakes.

What? who invites that many people to a 2-year-old’s birthday, but I digress.

Akram's Ideas 24 cupcake pan
Still it gave me a reason to use my 24 cupcake – cupcake pan

Despite the amount I agreed to make the cupcakes. It has been forever since I made cupcakes and we all know how much I love to bake. Thus, I couldn’t resist the chance to do some creative cupcaking.

The Cupcakes

Since the party was primarily for toddlers I decided that a vanilla cupcake would be the best option. Kids can be picky when it comes to flavors and not everyone likes chocolate.

Also I was informed that the party was owl themed and the cupcakes had to be decorated with owls.

Akram's Ideas: French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes Ingredients
French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes Ingredients

Thus, I ended up making French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes. Since I had a lot of cupcakes to make I wanted a super simple and quick recipe to use. I ended up choosing a variation of the White Almond Sour Cream cake that is used for most cake decorating projects.

Akram's Ideas: French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes Batter
I whipped up the batter in no time

The White Almond Sour Cream cake is moist but can also hold up to the weight of say fondant or lots of frosting decoration. Variations of the cake can also be made using different flavors. Best of all it uses a cake mix base, which means less mixing and more baking.

Akram's Ideas: French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes in liner
Used my scooper to fill the cupcake liners.

For my French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes, I used a French Vanilla cake mix as the base for the recipe.  I used a Duncan Hines cake mix as that is the preferred brand among cake decorators at least according to many forums.

French Vanilla Sour Cream Cupcakes
Yields 24
A rich french vanilla cake with a light and fluffy texture and taste.
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Ingredients
  1. 1 box French Vanilla cake mix
  2. 1 cup all-purpose flour
  3. 1 cup granulated sugar
  4. 3/4 tsp salt
  5. 4 egg or egg whites
  6. 1 1/4 cups water
  7. 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
  8. 1 cup (8oz carton) sour cream
  9. 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
  1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake tin with cupcake liners.
  2. Sift all dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix together thoroughly with a whisk.
  3. Using a mixer, mix all wet ingredients until well blended.
  4. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet, mixing as you go.
  5. Using a scooper fill  each cupcake liners 2/3 full.
  6. Bake at 325 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
  7. Allow cupcakes to cool in cupcake tin on a cooling rack before removing and allowing to cool the rest of the way on cooling racks.
Notes
  1. Using egg whites only will make the cake a pure white.
Adapted from White Almond Sour Cream Cake (Wasc)
Akram's Ideas https://akramsideas.com/

Buttercream Frosting

Keeping with the owl theme I planned to make candy melt owls to top the cupcakes, which I wrote about in a previous post.  Since the owls were pink and blue I decided to frost the cupcakes with a green buttercream frosting.

Akram's Ideas: French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes Frosted with owls frosted
Frosted and decorated cupcakes

I used a standard buttercream frosting recipe from Wilton. Once the frosting was whipped I mixed in a drop or two of green food coloring to give it a bright spring time look, despite the fact that it was still January.

Butter Cream Frosting
The traditional buttercream frosting which is spreadable and soft.
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Ingredients
  1. 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
  2. 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine (softened)
  3. 1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
  4. 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar ((approximately 1 lb.))
  5. Drops of food Coloring (optional)
  6. 2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
  1. In large bowl, beat shortening and butter with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla.
  2. Add sugar, one cup at a time, mixing on a medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often, to ensure everything is well blended.
  3. Add milk until frosting is light and fluffy.
  4. Once whipped add food coloring and mix until color is consistent throughout.
Adapted from Wilton
Adapted from Wilton
Akram's Ideas https://akramsideas.com/

Layla’s Giant Cupcake

While the cupcakes were for everyone at the party my sister asked if I could make a separate small cake just for Layla to blow out candles on.

As it so happens I have Wilton’s Giant cupcake pan, which I thought was perfect addition to the party. Basically I would make a giant version of the smaller cupcakes.

To decorate Layla’s cake I came across an amazing tutorial through Pinterest that I thought was too good to be true. To give your giant cupcake more stability and a really cool look you can make a candy melt bottom as sort of a cupcake liner for the cake.

Akram's Ideas: French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes Giant Cupcake
Here’s a close up of the giant cupcakes

Despite how complex it might look, it was actually pretty easy. You simply make your cake in the cake pan. Once the pan has been cleaned melt a little candy melts and pour them into the bottom half of the cake pan. Make a thin coat around the whole thing.

After the thin coat has set pour in more candy melts turning the pan as you go, ensuring every nook and cranny has been filled. Keep adding candy melts until you get the desired thickness. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Once your candy melt cupcake liner has set and chilled take the bottom half of your cupcake cake and cut off the edges so it’s slightly smaller than it’s original size. You are basically shaping it to fit inside your candy melt liner.

Akram's Ideas Cupcakes
I also brought some Raspberry Red Velvet Cupcakes for the adults

Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures of these steps. Still I can’t believe how easy it was and how easy the candy melts pulled right out of the pan. The giant cupcake fit inside of it with ease.

If I use this cupcake pan again I’m definitely using the candy melts for the bottom decoration it gives it a professional and polished look.

One quick tip, when cutting into this cake you’ll want to warm up your knife under hot water first, so that it can cut through the candy melts and not shatter it.

Birthday Girl

Akram's Ideas: Layla and her ballloons
Here’s the birthday girl, Layla and her ballloons

Overall I was happy with how professional and adorable the French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes and giant cupcake came out. I spent pretty much the whole day (working till 1 in the morning) to get all the cupcakes ready for the party, so it was no surprise that I was exhausted by the time the party started.

I hardly took any pictures nor did I get any really good photos of the cupcakes, sigh.

Akram's Ideas : Layla's 2nd Birthday
Just look at all the presents Layla got!

At least the birthday girl , Layla had a good time. Also, the cupcakes were delicious 😉

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Akram's Ideas: French Vanilla Sour Cream Owl Cupcakes

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Akram Taghavi-Burris

designer, writer, educator, tech nerd, crafter, baker, sewer and vintage collector, who Brings Creative & Crazy Ides to Life.

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