Cupcakes AND golf puns?! It must be your lucky day!

I can’t take all of the credit though, a little birdie told me about your love for wordplay.

Nothin’?

Sorry, was that joke a little subpar?

…Is this thing on?

Ahem. It took me no less than half an hour to come up with that title. I will be awarding $10 to whoever (whomever?) comes up with the best cupcake-related golf pun in the comments section. And then that person will give another $10 to whoever (whomever?) can explain to me the difference between “whoever” and “whomever” in a way that doesn’t make me keel over out of boredom.

In honor of Father’s Day this past Sunday (and my father’s love of golf), I decided to make some golf-themed cupcakes to bring to our family cookout. I figured a basic yellow cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting would work best (I thought chocolate might show through the sprinkles), so I went off in search of a solid-looking recipe. There are a bajillion out there, but I kept coming back to this one here; the sour cream in the recipe intrigued me so I decided to give it a whirl.

This recipe might have to sneak into the rotation because…

Bam. Seal of Approval, lookin’ as fancy as ever.

The cupcakes had a nice flavor that works great on its own and would probably work well as a base for other variations. Justin and I will take one for the team and investigate.

Man, the things that we do for this blog.

Vanilla Cupcakes
makes: 12 cupcakes / prep time: 10 minutes / bake time: 20-24 minutes
Recipe from BrownEyedBaker

• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon table salt
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), room temperature
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 large egg , room temperature
• 2 large egg yolks , room temperature
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line standard muffin/cupcake tin with paper or foil liners. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Add butter, sour cream, egg and egg yolks, and vanilla; beat at medium speed until smooth and satiny, about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula and mix by hand until smooth and no flour pockets remain. Divide batter evenly among cups of prepared tin. Bake until cupcake tops are pale gold and toothpick or skewer inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 24 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from tin and transfer to wire rack; cool cupcakes to room temperature before frosting.

For the frosting, I turned to the tried-and-true family recipe for vanilla buttercream that has been passed down from generation to generation. Since you’re all family too, I’ll share it with you. Hang on, let me grab the box of Domino Confectioners Sugar to make sure I get it right…

…all righty, here we go:

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Makes enough to fill and frost a 2-layer cake, a 13x9x2-inch sheet cake or 24 cupcakes.
Recipe from Domino Sugar

• 3 3/4 cups (1 lb box) Confectioners sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

In a large bowl with electric mixer at low speed, combine sugar, butter, milk and vanilla. Beat at medium speed 1 to 2 minutes until creamy. If desired, add more milk until frosting is spreading consistency.

But keep it on the DL, it’s a family secret!

I halved the recipe since I was only working with 12 cupcakes. Then I just frosted one cupcake at a time (so that the frosting wouldn’t have a chance to harden while I frosted others) and dipped it frosting-side down in a bowl of green sanding sugar (found in the cake decorating section of the baking ingredient aisle at the supermarket) and rolled it around until all of the white frosting was covered.

The flag is a toothpick with a little triangle of paper taped to it, adorned with my elegant script. The golf ball is a Tic Tac that I pushed into the frosting until just the top was showing.

I’ll admit, it was a bit of a sugar overload between the frosting and the sanding sugar, so I left a few of them undecorated in case there were some folks present who felt like sleeping at some point in the next 4 days. Personally, I ate one of the decorated ones and I expect to crash mid-afternoon on Thursday.