Sunshine Cupcakes

On Monday, I shared our adults only birthday treat from the weekend.  Another birthday treat I made for my mom was a variation on another one of my Granny's recipes: Sunshine Cupcakes.  The recipe is for Sunshine Cake and is actually my great grandmother's recipe.  It uses only egg yolks, and apparently she would make it whenever she made angel food cake, which uses only egg whites.

You will need:

• 1 cup egg yolks (this ends up being between 13-16 egg yolks, so get more than a dozen!  And if you're like me, plan on a dropping a few down the disposal by accident)
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 cups cake flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup hot water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

First, measure out your egg yolks and pour into a large bowl.

To make things easier, measure out the sugar into its own bowl.  Then, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl.

Now, Granny's recipe says to beat the eggs until they are very light in color.  This translates to: beat the eggs until your arm feels like it is going to fall off, and then beat for another several minutes.  Then, take a little break and beat again until you just can't do it anymore.  Lesson learned: use an electric beater if you have one.

Once the eggs are light in color, beat in the sugar.

Then, alternate adding the flour mixture and the hot water with the vanilla until they are completely incorporated.

Granny's recipe says to pour the mixture into an ungreased tube pan and bake for 45 minutes (temperature unspecified).  But, since I was making cupcakes, I filled the cupcake liners 2/3 full and baked at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

 

Then, I whipped up a cream cheese frosting and frosted them up!  The cake has a really interesting texture- it's like a heavy angel food cake.  I hope you enjoy it!