High Altitude Funfetti Cupcakes
Soft, fluffy and moist Funfetti cupcakes, frosted with rainbow swirl buttercream and topped with sprinkles.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Paddle Attachment
- 2 Standard Muffin Pans with 12 Cups
- Piping Bag + Tip 6B
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 3 egg whites
- 1 ½ cups cake flour, spooned and leveled
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¾ cup whole or lowfat buttermilk
- ¼ cup full-fat sour cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
- ¼ cup rainbow confetti sprinkles (quins)
Buttercream
- 2 cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp meringue powder, optional
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbsp milk, if needed for consistency
- gel food coloring, optional
- sprinkles
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven. Line your muffin pans with 19 paper cupcake liners.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter with the sugar for about 3-5 minutes on medium speed, scraping the bowl frequently, until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the egg whites, one at a time, until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, vanilla and almond extracts.
- With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture, starting and ending with the flour. Once you've added everything, mix well for about 15-30 seconds until the batter is well combined.
- Briefly fold in the sprinkles, just until evenly dispersed throughout the batter.
- Use a scant 1/4 measuring cup to fill the muffin cups, filling them no more than 2/3 full. If you like, sprinkle the top of the batter with a few more sprinkles.
- Bake the cupcakes for about 15-16 minutes, just until the tops spring back when gently touched. Cool in the pan for several minutes, then gently transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium for 1 minute until smooth.
- With the mixer on low, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the meringue powder, salt and vanilla extract, until combined but clumpy. Increase the speed to medium, and whip for about 5 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally, until very light and fluffy. Only add the milk if the buttercream seems too stiff. Now turn the speed down to low, and mix for 1 minute to get rid of large air bubbles.
- For the rainbow swirl buttercream shown in today's post, divide the batter between several bowls. Tint each portion of buttercream with a drop or two of gel food coloring.(I chose 5 colors for mine: Americolor "Lemon Yellow", "Orange", "Electric Pink", "Electric Green" and "Regal Purple".
- Fit a 16-inch piping bag with tip 6B. Fill the bag (no more than 2/3 full) with spoonfuls of buttercream, alternating the colors in the bag, so that they swirl and blend together when you pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes.
- Pipe the buttercream onto the cooled cupcakes, refilling the piping bag as needed. Top the cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles.
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