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).
Check out all of my cupcake recipes here!
Make sure to follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest!
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.
woops correction*** extra teaspon of baking powder!
failure, why…? baking soda! the cause of domes, take it off, do 1 and 1/3 c flour, an extra teaspoon of baking soda and good vanilla extract, and 1 c sugar. this worked truly PERFECT, at least for me. please try if you had any issues.
These were pure beautiful. They were perfect! I’m gonna use this recipe for a very long time!~
Oh my goodness. In my circle of family and friends there is one thing, and one thing only, that I make which I am known for. It is my chocolate cake. I have to admit, it is pretty good. I wanted to make a vanilla cake for my daughter’s birthday so I tried this one. It is better than my chocolate one. It looks like most of the other comments were from people who were planning to make this. If you have not, make it today! It is not hard. I made it with the vanilla cream cheese frosting. This is the most moist and flavorful cake I have come across.. Thank you! I made it as a 4 layer pink ombre cake with graduating shades of pink as the layers went up. I have a blog in which I talk mostly about french decor, never about food. That being said, I would like your permission to link back to this post so my readers can make this wonderful cake. Thanks again!
Michele
Michele,
Thanks so much for the great review! Please feel free to share a link on your site back to my post. Thanks!
you have no idea how desperate i am to eat home made BY ME 😀 vanilla cup cakes but immediately i am definitely trying these now but there’s a question i would like to ask,
I LOVE BUTTER by all means and love the buttery taste does it taste like this also with the oil thing or i can substitute oil with butter and if yes how much butter ?
and thank you for the pictures, unfortunately one can’t eat laptop screens 😀
PS: im baking it now !!!
Feel free to experiment with this recipe as you wish. I have only made it with oil, because I wanted a light and fluffy texture that is almost impossible to get with butter cakes. As long as you are using high quality ingredients (especially the vanilla), I think you’ll find the flavor of these cakes quite nice. Happy Baking!
Delicious, just made them yesterday. Also made your vanilla frosting, yum! I filled the cases to the half way point, and they turned out perfect. Thanks for sharing!
Hi! look lovely in the photo! I have just made them and they came out of the oven with perfect domes so big thumbs up there! Unfortunately I found them too sweet so next time i make them i will cut the sugar by at least 30% Also they are very brown, It may be because i put too much vanilla in them, they look as if they are wholemeal cupcakes? how strange!
Hi Glory!!!
THANK YOU for providing us all with this lovely recipe. I wasn’t sure what to expect since I’ve never used cake flour, but I am definitely in love with the cupcake. The texture of the crumb is perfect. THIS is definitely the PERFECT CUPCAKE!!! I made three batches this morning for my little girls 3rd birthday party tomorrow. Thanks again and I know everyone will love them!!!!!!
Thank you thank you thank you!!! I’ve never had much luck (or any luck) with vanilla cupcakes. My attempted cuocakes always turn out oddly shaped, sized, or tasting. But these cupcakes, ABSOLUTELY divine! They looked exactly like the pictures! I didn’t have any buttermilk around, so I just used half and half, and even with that slight alteration, these cupcakes were DELISH. Light, fluffy, moist? All of the above. 12 out of 10 stars! 🙂
Perfect!! My new go to recipe. I substiuted cake flour and buttermilk, because in our country they don’t sell special flour for cakes.
They came out perfectly domed, moist, dense but puffy. I injected some strawberry cocktail syrup.