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.
Just made these, and after they cooled my 3 yr old and I tried one without icing. YUM! I am whipping up my favorite Italian Meringue Buttercream now! Will be giving these to the neighbors as V-Day gifts. 🙂
I’m so glad I found you! I have found so many vanilla cupcake recipes and I’ve made all of those that I found trying to find the PERFECT one. Well, I was almost going to give up, then I read all of the great comments here and decided to give it one last try. OMG! This really is the BEST vanilla cupcakes recipe. I used a vanilla bean in the batter instead of the extract, but I’m sure that they are just as good with only the vanilla extract. I paired them with your chocolate cream cheese frosting. I made these for Super Bowl Sunday….my family LOVED them! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
I just made these cupcakes, and I just have to say…..THANK YOU! They are wonderful! I can’t wait to try the frosting as well 🙂 truly delicious
Always sceptical about anything claiming to be the best or perfect, I had to try it.
Well, not disappointed, this is my new cupcake sponge mixture!
i made these last nigh for my family and i wrote the recipe down wrong. instead of just 1/2 cup of oil. i used 1 1/2 cups!!! i ate a few and so did everyone else! i guess we were really hungry for cupcakes because they werent that bad. a little greasy 😉 hahahahahahahahahahaha
So many thanks. At last I baked like yours.
Hi!!! I’m 18 and am trying to pick up a new hobby. I tried in vain but failed miserably at my first batch of cupcakes. They came out tasting like corn bread and slightly burned :} but then through the grace of God I stumbled upon your recipe and they came out great! (but they still taste like corn bread :{ I dont know what I’m doing wrong :{ I was hopping you could give me some much needed advice! Your my inspiration! Thanks again for sharing your recipes!!
I didn’t have any baking soda, so I just omitted that and used whole milk instead of buttermilk and flour+cornstarch instead of cake flour and even with those changes they came out wonderful. Light and fluffy, not too moist or too dry and not overly sweet. I will definitely make them again, thanks for the recipe 🙂
Yes, these were very much like the vanilla cupcakes you would get from a box of high-quality mix. I tried them two ways: one with all oil and another with half oil/half melted butter. I am a pastry chef in a gourmet-upscale cupcake shop, and so many others out there trying, we are also trying to really perfect our ‘blank canvas’. (We’ve also tried the Magnolia’s, Sadaris, The Cake Bible…I’m just not impressed–their cakes are good for a 24-hour window but have no shelf life for a customer who is taking something home for the next day or two.) I’ve developed a recipe that is is about 90% to my liking (many of our customers LOVE it, but of course the chef needs to be ga-ga over it as well, haha), but it has quite a bit of ingredients and very specific mixing requirements to get it perfect. Makes it difficult to train anyone coming in behind me. 😀 This recipe is a great one for folks wanting to use this at home or even in a small cupcake business, but it’s just not quite what we were looking for at the shop, ALTHOUGH (and I stress this highly), I think kids would love this cupcake because of the familiarity they would experience from it being so similar to a boxed-mix cupcake. I really did enjoy the subtle flavors and the use of buttermilk (favorite baking ingredient). You could pair this cupcakes with nearly ANY kind of frosting, and it could also very easily be transformed into an almond cake as well. I noticed a few people were having issues with their cakes coming out ‘chewy’ or with an odd texture. Very important: Do NOT over-mix these cakes. You aren’t beating any air/structure into a butter/sugar mixture. Therefore there won’t be minutes of mixing time. Really these should almost just be done by hand entirely. You will develop gluten VERY QUICKLY if you over-mix, resulting in a ‘chewy’ cake.
FYI:
If you cannot find cake flour you can make your own
1 cup of regular flour minus 2 tbs. Then add 2 tbs corn starch.