A truly perfect Vanilla Cupcake recipe! These Vanilla Cupcakes are easy to make, moist, and bake up beautifully every time! Light, fluffy and flavorful! Got the baking bug? Try my Lemon Cupcakes and Chocolate Cupcakes too!
Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes Recipe
This week I’ve made 6 batches of vanilla cupcakes and a vanilla cake. I feel like my oven has been on for 42 hours straight! =) What are all these cupcakes for, you might ask. Well, for me… and for science, and for you too. Confused yet? I’ll explain…
I have been on a search for a perfect vanilla cupcake recipe for several years. I have tried Martha’s, Magnolia’s, Billy’s and Amy Sedaris’. I’ve read the Cake Bible from cover to cover (really!). I’ve googled until I can’t google anymore! Some of the recipes were good, just not perfect. I’ve considered just giving up… maybe my expectations were to high. I wanted a vanilla cupcake recipe that was as light and fluffy as a box mix, but without all the funny chemicals. I wanted a cupcake that was flavorful and moist. And I wanted it to be almost as easy to make from scratch as from a box.
The BEST Vanilla Cupcakes
This week, I wasn’t going to stop until I found what I was looking for. So I baked and baked… then went to the store for more butter and sugar, and baked some more! I tried recipes with butter, oil, or some of both… recipes with milk, buttermilk, or sour cream… 1 egg, 2 eggs, 5 eggs… baking powder, baking soda… bake at 350*, bake at 325*…
I made cupcakes that were lopsided, over-flowing, over-baked, and just plain ugly…
And then I made these…
They looked beautiful and tasted perfect, so I double checked all my notes to make sure I could remember what I put in them… then I made another batch to make sure it was THE ONE.
They were just as perfect!! I think I heard angels singing….
I am SO happy to share the results of my many experiments! These cupcakes were absolutely delicious and I look forward to making them again and again. Now certainly, peoples tastes and preferences vary greatly. I love these, my husband (my #1 taste tester) loves them, and I hope many of you will too. As with any recipe, it is very important to use the best quality ingredients you can.
Ingredients Needed
You will notice the recipe calls for cake flour, which is a bit more expensive than all-purpose flour, but I have found it is essential to produce the light and fluffy texture I was looking for. Also, the recipe uses oil instead of butter. I realized most cupcake recipes (from scratch) call for butter, and yet box mixes (which have the texture I was looking for) are baked using oil.
I was concerned that using only oil would leave the cupcakes without adequate flavor, but I found that with good quality vanilla, these cupcakes are delicious and flavorful.
- 1 1/4 cups cake flour
- 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup oil (vegetable, canola or extra light olive oil)
- 1/3 cup milk (whole or low fat, but avoid fat free)
- 1/3 cup sour cream (full fat or light, but avoid fat free)
How To Make Vanilla Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350*F.
- In a medium bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together with whisk, and set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, add eggs and beat 10-20 seconds. Add sugar and continue to beat on medium speed about 30 seconds. Add vanilla and oil, beat.
- Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add about half of the flour mixture. Add the milk, then the rest of the flour and the sour cream. Beat until just combined. Scrap down the side of the bowl.
- The batter will be thin. Pour batter into a muffin pan prepared with paper liners. Fill liners about 2/3 full.
- Bake cupcakes in pre-heated oven for 12-14 minutes.
- Cool in pan 1-2 minutes, then remove cupcakes from pan (carefully) and finish cooling on a wire rack.
- Frost as desired when fully cool. I love to use my favorite Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting recipe.
- Feel free to use this recipe for a cake as well. The recipe above will work for a 6″ cake. Double the recipe for an 8″ or 9″ cake.
* A note about Cake Flour- Cake Flour has a lower protein content than traditional all-purpose flour, which results in a more tender, delicate crumb in the finished product. If you can not find or access cake flour, feel free to substitute as necessary, but your results will vary from the original recipe.
RECIPE UPDATES
I have made this recipe many times with success, but in an effort to always be improving (even great recipes) I’ve made a couple small updates to this recipe (which are now listed in the recipe card).
My original recipe included 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder (now reduced to 3/4), 3/4 cup sugar (now increased to 1 cup) and 1/2 cup buttermilk (now updated to 1/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup sour cream).
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More Cupcake Recipes
How To Make Vanilla Cupcakes
Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups cake flour
- 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup oil vegetable, canola or extra light olive oil
- 1/3 cup milk whole or low fat, but avoid fat free
- 1/3 cup sour cream full fat or light, but avoid fat free
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350*F.
- In a medium bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together with whisk, and set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, add eggs and beat 10-20 seconds. Add sugar and continue to beat on medium speed about 30 seconds. Add vanilla and oil, beat.
- Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add about half of the flour mixture. Add the milk, then the rest of the flour and the sour cream. Beat until just combined. Scrap down the side of the bowl.
- The batter will be thin. Pour batter into a muffin pan prepared with paper liners. Fill liners about 2/3 full.
- Bake cupcakes in pre-heated oven for 12-14 minutes.
- Cool in pan 1-2 minutes, then remove cupcakes from pan (carefully) and finish cooling on a wire rack.
- Frost as desired when fully cool. I love to use my favorite cream cheese frosting or buttercream frosting with these cupcakes.
Hi Glory – First time ever posting on a blog but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't RAVE about your perfectly vanilla and perfectly chocolate cupcake recipes. I recently used these for Easter and my good friend's baby shower today and they were a HUGE hit at both events! In fact one person said that these weren't only the best cupcakes she'd ever tasted but the best dessert she's ever had. I also love your cream cheese frosting! For the baby shower I went with a Swiss Meringue buttercream though – it was delicious but talk about time intensive – not sure I'll be making that again anytime soon! Sorry for the long post but just wanted to say thank you for doing all the research and your willingness to post these fabulous recipes!
Many blessings to you and your family!
Betsy
These cupcakes are wonderful- thanks so much! I've been looking for a long time and often resort to box mixes as I'm dissappointed with vanilla from scratch.
One comment I have for others that have had trouble- check your oven temperature. This is very important. You can buy an oven themometre at a hardware store for $5. My oven takes WAY longer to preheat than it tells me!
made them tonight and it has risen similarly to your pictures which is great but the cupcake is moist but turned out very dense, more than I expected it to be. I wonder why? :(It's also too oily. thanks for the recipe tho!
Hi Glorious, I was just about to give up until I found your recipe. I made them this afternoon. I have never seen such beautiful cupcakes. I took pictures and sent them to my friends. And the texture was perfect. Between a angel food cake and pound cake texture. I am so excited. They taste delicious. I did have to cook them for 17 min, it could be where I live or my oven. Thank you…
These are the best vanilla cupcakes. They taste like the ones at the professional bakeries. This is my go to cupcake recipe.
The only modification is that I used 1 cup of sugar instead of 3/4 cup.
Great Job Glory!!!1
Wow! Even though I'm not really a baker, I made these cupcakes for a boys' soccer team party,with vanilla frosting and black soccer ball decorations. They were light and fluffy, sweet and savory. I loved them, and this is my second time making them! This is a big deal, I normally don't go back to a cupcake recipe after I've tried it, but the boys came back begging for more and I love them too! 🙂
Hello your website is awesome!! I was wondering what your thoughts were about making this into a white cake. Do you think omitting the yoke would make a big difference? I thought of just adding one more egg and using just the whites.
I followed your recipe to the letter except I used regular pure olive oil instead of extra virgin light and my cupcakes sunk in the middle. This is frustrating after all the great comments about this recipe. Any idea what went wrong?
I only had all purpose flour on hand and used that. These STILL turned out so much better than the Betty Crocker ones I made last night. BC isn't what she used to be. The recipe in there had the texture of corn bread! These even tasted better! doubled the recipe, made slightly smaller cupcakes (2 doz) and had enough batter for a thin round 8" cake. Thanks for posting!
Made these cupcakes this weekend and as promised, they came out looking exactly as photographed in on this blog entry- perfect domed shape, didn't collapse when taken out of the oven, etc. HOWEVER, I didn't get the light, fluffy texture like that of a box mix cake…? To me, the cake texture was more similar to corn muffin/bread than traditional cupcakes. I followed the recipe to a tee… am I missing something here?