Yo Gabba Gabba Cupcakes

When you're obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba, it's a good thing that your mom is pretty handy with piping frosting, so she can create these little precious babies!

For the record, Toddler's name is not Yan. Or Nay. Or Ayn.

Never heard of Yo Gabba Gabba? I wish I were still in that boat sometimes. It's a kids' show on Nick Jr., featuring five different characters, Muno, Plex, Brobee, Toodee, and Foofa. They play in a place called Gabbaland and learn lots of different lessons, as well as activities. The one thing I like is that it encourages the kids to get up and move, to dance around. Toddler loves it. He calls it "Yo Bagga" at the moment, which is really cute. His whole party was "Yo Bagga" themed, so he was just in hog heaven.

I did find the perfect yellow cupcake recipe for these, at the last moment, and I was super thrilled with how they turned out. They were a big hit at Toddler's party. Come next year, no recipe hunting necessary! Unless, that is, he develops the deep love and appreciation for chocolate that his mommy has. This year, he was really just interested in the frosting, with a few nibbles of cupcake. He chose to eat Toodee, the blue character, so he got the whole messy cake experience under his belt - last year, he barely wanted to touch his cake, he didn't want to get dirty! So without any further adieu, here's the recipe:

Perfect Yellow Cupcakes

adapted from Martha Stewart and America's Test Kitchen

Printer-friendly recipe

3 2/3 cups cake flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

24 tbsp (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 1/2 cups sugar

8 large eggs, room temperature

2 tbsp vanilla extract

3 cups whole milk, room temperature

3 cups of your favorite frosting

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium bowl and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3-6 minutes. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then vanilla, until combined, about 30 seconds.

3. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in one-third of the flour mixture, followed by half of the milk. Repeat with half of the remaining flour mixture, and the remaining milk. Beat in the remaining flour mixture until just incorporated.

4. Give the batter a final stir with a rubber spatula to make sure it is thoroughly combined.

5. Line three 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners and use a greased 1/4 cup measure to portion the batter into each cup. Bake the cupcakes on the upper-middle and lower-middle racks in a 350 degree oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 15-20 minutes through baking. Let the cupcakes cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. Spread the frosting evenly over the cupcakes and serve, or decorate to your heart's delight and serve.