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!
what type of sugar do you use?
white granulated sugar
i have made every vanilla cupcake known to man found one that was just ok… so yes i settled. Now i stumble across yours and i feel like i have hit the mother load !!!!!!!! Thanks Glory !!!!
Just made these cupcakes and they taste PHENOMENAL! My family loves them and I think I might make them for my party! Thank you so much, I will definitely be coming back to his recipe, 🙂
Finally !! I did it !! Thanks to you I have finally baked a great cupcake. I tried this recipe once before but didn’t have the buttermilk so I tried it using the milk with vinegar. They didn’t turn out right for me.. They were like little lead cupcakes, lol.. This time I used powdered buttermilk according to the directions given and WOW.. my cupcakes are great !! They are light, airy, tasty and look just like your pics. I would love to have them turn out exactly like that without so much oil, but until someone has a suggestion that works, I will absolutely stay with this recipe. Thank you for having the cupcake fix !!
I just baked these. They are perfect. If someone has a complaint about them, its because they are doing something wrong. I didnt even follow the directions (i put everything in the mixing bowl at once and only mixed it for a minute or two) and they came out perfect. The oil keeps it soft. Butter gets hard when its cold and has a dry texture. Oil keeps the crumb soft and tender.
The only thing I can say is WOW….Thank you so much for this recipe. They came out fantastic. I had to leave mine in the oven a bit longer but they are lovely fluffy and light…..I have been looking for a great recipe as well and this one will be going into my book as my favourite cupcake recipe…..Thank you again……
Hi…thanks so much for this recipe,..I’ve been looking for a similar ingredients that i use for my chocolate cupcake. I also use veg.oil and cake flour for my chocolate cupcake, and also they are fluffy and moist…i bet this vanilla cupcake recipe is also moist and fluffy, haven’t tried it but i bet it’ll be a good one.. i might try to make this today : )
Hello I write from Spain, first I love your site and as you share with all your wonderfull recipes. I was surprised a great job to get the perfect recipe. I promise that I will do and I’ll tell you the result. Although I will have problems with the units of measure (here we use others), I hope to get a result similar to yours. Thank you very much for all the advice
Hi, I just baked 72 of these beautiful cupcakes. And I got to say – they are perfection! Even all the way here in Europe, they turned out so well! I had to make a few modifications, maybe this is helpful for some of your foreign readers:
* I used regular flour, but substituted 1 TBSP of flour with 1 TBSP of corn starch per cup just like you suggested. And sifted it too.
* Buttermilk doesn’t exist here and our vinegar is different strength, so I used milk+lemon juice. But I had to use vinegar for one batch, because I ran out of lemon juice, I used half the amount vinegar buttermilk substitute calls for.
* AND I used a tad more baking powder and a tad less baking soda+salt (I could taste the soda in my test batch but then again I can taste baking soda in just about anything, so it bothers me sometimes).
* AND the common vanilla flavoring agent here is vanilla sugar, so I used that instead of extract (doubled the amount, so 1TBSP of vanilla sugar) and STILL they are perfect! Soft, light, airy, tender. Thank you!
Hi Glory! I am so glad I found this site! I’m on maternity leave with my second child and have lots of time to bake…and I love baking cupcakes! I followed your recipe for these perfect cupcakes (other than buttermilk…I used milk+vinegar) and they looked fantastic!! However, they were kind of oily and dense…:( what suggestions do you have for next time? Thanks so much! I have saved this to my favourites! xo