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.
I’m not a huge vanilla fan-more of a chocolate or citrus flavor kind of gal- but I purchased a new mixer and just HAD to try it out with a new recipe. Since my husband likes vanilla, I thought I would try these. They are amazing!!! So moist and yummy – one of my new faves. I passed some along to two of my neighbors and they got rave reviews – and did not last long at all. Thanks for all your hard work in finding just the right recipe.
I’m a new baker and made these last weekend. They turned out perfectly!
Thanks so much!
Okay!! I remade these with the right amount of BP, They came out perfect!!!! even fixed the browning problem i had! Thank you Glory!
These taste amazing! Super moist, too. However, mine came out way to brown and flat, they also dipped in the middle. Totally my mistake since I accidentally used way to much baking powder(used TBSP, not TSp, oops) I’m hoping that is what caused them to be overly brown. Making another batch today. Boy does my hubby love me!! (he loves cake)
I’ve also tried millions of vanilla cupcake recipes leaving me with that not-right feeling in my tummy and on my taste buds!! not fun! and i just gave up and went back to boxed mixes (which always make the angels sing!) so i can’t wait to try this one, hope i don’t screw it up <3
Simply delicious!!!!!
Tried these yesterday and they were every bit as wonderful as you had promised! Definitely book-marking this recipe!
Want to make a birthday cake for my husband but I don’t have cake flour, I only have self-raising flour (bought the wrong flour!). How can I make it work with this? Would I still need to put the baking powder and soda? If so, how much? Will the cakes come out the same? Please help! Thanks 🙂
Melanie- I have only made the cake with the ingredients I’ve listed, I have no way to know what the results may be if you alter the recipe. Free free to experiment. I don’t know how much levening is in self-raising flour… I would almost lean toward using regular (all purpose) flour, along with corn startch (subing one tablespoon of corn startch for one tablespooon of flour, for each cup of flour), and use that in place of cake flour, but keep the levening the same. Be sure to sift the flour and corn startch, or your self-raising flour, to try and duplicate the delicate crumb that cake flour would lend.
I tried this and I’m pretty sure I followed the recipe When I let them cool they sunk in the liners?! 🙁
Thanks so much just made these after looking for a perfect cupcake recipe for weeks and they are delicious, to bitter the milk i substituted lemon juice for lime and its delish!
Good quality butter is difficult to find in my country latetly, so I was looking for a butter-free alternative when I found this recipe. I made a batch yesterday and the cupcakes were perfect! Moist and soft and even better than the usual recipe I use (from the Primrose Bakery cookbook). I added some lime zest and used regular flour wih a tablespoon of cornstarch like someone here advised. I used swiss meringue buttercream (I like it because is so light). Thanks for all the work you put on this recipe 🙂