Vanilla Beans

I recently ordered some Vanilla Beans off of ebay.  They were shipped from France and made it here in about a week.  I was excited to put them to use, so I whipped up some vanilla bean cupcakes with vanilla bean frosting.  (The recipe is the same one I shared earlier, The Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake, by the cupcake  project.  For my frosting, I wanted a whipped cream type of frosting, so I started out making whipped cream and adding vanilla bean.  However, once I made it, I thought, I'd experiment with something a little different.  The result:  EPIC FAIL!  (See, it's not all baking perfection over here!)

 So, I tossed that batch and started over.  The second go around, I just stuck with a vanilla buttercream. The vanilla bean makes a world of difference.  YUM!  So here are some plain Jane vanilla bean cupcakes.