White Velvet Butter Cupcakes with Raspberry Neoclassic Buttercream

This little cupcake with its decadent frosting was the perfect treat to counter the wonderful French pastries we've been eating for the last two weeks! The all-American cupcake, light, rich, and buttery, can hold its own against any mille feuille or macaron. And the buttercream! Made with French butter, this fantastic icing could make a Frenchman bid adieu to creme Chantilly!
Well, that might be an exaggeration, but the Buttercream Framboise is pretty darned good (as we say in Minnesota).

I got some very cute tulip parchment liners from King Arthur. Mine are brown and gold. Apparently you can make them yourself because they're just squares of parchment, but that didn't occur to me, so I bought them.

The cupcakes are so simple to make that there are no process pictures to speak of. Just add butter to flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; then mix in egg whites, milk, and vanilla. I usually buy whole milk for cooking, but I only had skim milk. It worked fine, and allowed me to convince myself that I was baking low-fat cupcakes.

I should have been worried about the buttercream, but I somehow knew that it would work out, as it did. I spent about ten minutes letting the Lyle's Golden Syrup drip out of the jar until I got exactly 85 grams. Jim was sure I'd have to open another jar, and I was equally sure that I wouldn't. Stubbornness won out. Drip by drip, I got my 85 grams.

This is my Isigny butter from Normandy. I got it on sale before I left for France. If I were being true to Brittany, where I just vacationed, I should have bought its famous butter, which is excellent, but it's the only butter in France that's salted. I wanted unsalted butter, so I had to go to Normandy. But if you want delicious caramels made with salted butter, you should go to Brittany post-haste.

The last time I made this buttercream with butter, egg yolks, and Lyle's Golden Syrup, it turned out very yellow, and it confused people, who expected it to be lemon. I decided I'd head that confusion off by adding raspberry puree, but the frosting, without raspberries, turned out to be creamy-looking, rather than lemon yellow. I don't think it would have been confusing, but I added the raspberries anyhow.

And then, dear readers, I got out my piping equipment. Yes. Those of you who have followed my adventures in cakedom know that I have always hated piping, decorating, and anything that might come from Michael's. But apparently I've had a sudden change of personality, because my piping bag started calling to me.

Top each frosted cupcake with a single red raspberry. It's as pretty as anything you'd see in Paris.

And not just pretty, but tasty too! The cupcake's crumb is lovely--soft and delicate; and the taste is pure.

I was going to give all these cupcakes away today, but I'm having a dinner party tomorrow. I've already planned chocolate pots de creme as dessert, but I'm going to offer a plate of cupcakes too: a dual dessert party. Who can complain about that? Not Jim or I, the only people who have tasted them so far. We both loved the delicious flavor and crunchy edges of the cupcake, and the tart smoothness of the buttercream. I think these cupcakes can hold their own, even against chocolate.