very vanilla

With so many flavoured cupcakes available these days, vanilla cupcakes seem to sometimes get forgotten. I personally love the flavour of vanilla, so vanilla cupcakes remain one of my favourite types of cupcake. Whilst I’ve sworn on this vanilla cupcake recipe for years now, I thought it was time to find a new one bursting with even more vanilla flavour.

I spent a lot of time searching the internet and came across this recipe, which is a result of a fellow baker and food blogger who was on her own quest to find the ulimate vanilla cupcake recipe. And wow, it is an amazing one! The cupcake is light, fluffy and very, very vanilla-y! I decided to keep it simple and team the cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream. It was heaven. I also decorated the cupcakes with handmade fondant glitter butterflies, which were quite time-consuming to make, but ended up looking really pretty.

For those wanting to make a vanilla buttercream, here’s my approximate recipe: 1) beat 250g of softened butter in a bowl until pale, 2) gradually beat in about 3 cups of icing sugar, tasting occasionally and adding more according to taste, and 3) finish off with a teaspoon of vanilla essence. The more you beat the ingredients together, the more fluffy the buttercream becomes, and the more amazing it is to bite through when eating the cupcake. You can also find a delicious vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting here.

new shanghai

Deep fried chicken with special garlic and chilli sauce.

Pan fried pork dumplings containing broth.

Rainbow beef - deep fried shredded beef tossed with sweet and sour sauce and sesame sauce.

Pork belly braised overnight in sweet soy sauce.

Steamed mini pork buns.

Whenever I visit Brisbane I find myself continuously eating, thus I’m always inadvertently searching for new and exciting restaurants to dine in. New Shanghai, located in Queens Plaza on the mall, is definitely my most favourite new find. Their menu is extensive and packed full of delicious dishes. The dumplings we ordered were by far the best dumplings I have ever eaten, and the rainbow beef stood out as my favourite main dish. Be sure to accompany your meal with the lime chiller drink – both lusciously light and refreshingly flavoursome. Overall, beautiful food, cooked to perfection and served in no time at all.