For week five of our Community Comes Together campaign, we invited local youths to send in a recipe they made. Olivia, age 12, is shown with her vanilla bunny cupcakes. Click below for the recipe and more submissions for this week. Next week’s activity features projects made using recycled materials.

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Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, by Olivia, 12

Serves: 14

Ingredients:

1. Vanilla Cupcakes
2. 1 cup buttermilk
3. 1 large egg
4. ½ cup oil ( veg. Or canola)
5. 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
6. 1 cup white granulated sugar
7. 1 and ½ cups all-purpose flour
8. ¼ teaspoon salt
9. 1 teaspoon baking soda
10. Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
11. 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
12. 4-5 cups powdered sugar
13. ¼ cup heavy cream
14. 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with 12 cupcakes liners. Set aside.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the buttermilk, egg, and oil. Add in the vanilla extract. If you are using milk and vinegar for buttermilk, then allow it to set for 5 minutes, then add it into the recipe.
3. Stir in the sugar.
4. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients: flour, salt, and baking soda.
5. Pour the cupcake batter into the cupcake liners and fill ¾ of the way. Bake for 20 minutes.
6. Allow the cupcakes to completely cool.
7. While the cupcakes are cooling, prepare the buttercream frosting by mixing the butter on high for 2-3 minutes.
8. Add in the powdered sugar ½ cup at a time and mix on medium speed. Mix until all of the powdered sugar has been added.
9. Add in the heavy cream and vanilla extract.
10. Frosting the cool cupcakes. There might be leftover frosting depending on how much you used on each cupcake.

To decorate the cupcakes you will need:

1. 1 bag marshmallows
2. 1 bag shredded coconut
3. ½ cup granulated sugar
4. Red food dye
5. Mini chocolate chips
6. Pink jelly beans (small)

1. Add a couple of tiny drops of red food coloring to sugar…to make it pink…(may need more) with the back of a spoon mush the food coloring into the sugar and stir to mix it up.
2. Cut 7 marshmallows on a diagonal to form ears, dip cut side in the pink sugar mixture
3. Frost the cupcakes and dip into coconut.
4. Place two ears on the cake and use some frosting to glue the ears in place.
5. Use two mini chocolate chips for eyes and a pink jelly bean for the nose..you may need to use a little frosting to glue those on as well.

Watermelon Pizza, by Violeta, 7

(Click for the full image)

Homemade Pizza, by Daniel, 8

Ingredients

1. 1 packet instant yeast (we use pizza crust yeast when we can find it)
2. 1 tsp sugar
3. 1 cup very warm water
4. 2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
5. 2 tbsp olive oil
6. 1 tsp salt
7. Pizza sauce, cheese and toppings

Instructions

1. Preheat over to 425.
2. Mix yeast, sugar and water until foamy.
3. Add flour, olive oil and salt. Stir until dough comes together
4. Put dough on lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
5. Add back to bowl, cover and let rise at least 30 minutes. (We like to let it rise for 60 minutes)
6. Take dough out of bowl and roll into your desired shape.  (We have a round pizza or square pizza stone that we use.)
7. Top with pizza sauce, cheese and other toppings.
8. Bake until cheese is bubbly and crust is golden brown.