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.
These turned perfect ! I made them! Thanks for sharing!
Isn’t the sugar too much??
when converted in grams, it is 150 Gm sugar, 115 Gm cake flour,
i am just wondering 🙂
I am only familiar with American measurements, as listed. I know there are conversion charts available, and it sounds like you found one. I’m sorry I can’t confirm if those conversions are correct or not. If you can find a set of American measuring cups, that would solve the problem as well. Best of luck!
Hiya, was just wondering if you could clear up a confusion. Step two says to add eggs, but it doesn’t say in the list of ingredients how many eggs will be required?
thank you
The recipes lists 2 eggs.
Hi there! First off, just want to say THANK YOU(!!!!) for this wonderful wonderful recipe!! I, like you, tried many many MANY different vanilla recipes and they were always… “ehhh, I guess it’s fine”. I am a big time cupcake enthusiast (rather than cake pops, cakes, etc.) and I know a good cupcake when I have one! And when I made your recipe and…. oh…. my…. CAKENESS!!!!!! *___* I was hearing the stars sing and wanted to cry rainbows *yes you read that right!* I love that you use cake flour rather than all purpose flour.
I used my own vanilla frosting and it was just too much perfection! Everyone loved them so much, they finished all the cupcakes probably within 5 mins! This will DEFINITELY be my go to vanilla cupcake recipe!
I do however have a question. I did your recipe just as you said and it turned out great, but I was wondering if there would be a difference if I decided to use nonsalted butter rather than oil. I usually like using butter in my cake recipes because it gives it the “yum” factor, I was reading your blog and you said you did a bunch with oil and without, so wanted to see if you tried this recipe with butter rather than oil and what were the results. 🙂 Also, if it would make a big difference if I make it into a cake/ cakepops.
Thank you so much again!! <3
Thanks so much Emmie for your sweet and enthusiastic comments!
Feel free to experiment with using butter in place of part or all of the oil. I would imagine they would turn out quite well, but will likely be a bit denser.
Just wanted to say Thank You for this recipe! I baked them yesterday for my Granddaughter’s tea party birthday party… They are just yummy. I feel better giving children cupcakes from scratch than box!
Very greasy in (normal) cupcake liners… and the tops became super moist after being covered for just 8 hours prior to frosting. Wondering if they’d be better frosting immediately, but that just couldn’t happen with our timeline this time. They have great shape and turned out very uniform though! Will use this recipe again!
I need help. I followed the directions to a T and somehow they messed up. I filled the cupcake liners 2/3 full and after checking at 12 minutes they completely overfilled. These are some ugly looking cupcakes but do taste good.
Isaac, Every oven can be a bit different, and without being with you in the kitchen it’s sometimes difficult to know exactly what went wrong. It sounds like you over filled the liners a bit. Try using less batter in each cup and I hope you have more success.
Happy baking! Glory
Hi! Did you use greaseproof liners? Your photographs look fantastic! Im looking for cupcakes that will not make colored cupcake liners go transparent after baking!
Hi! Yes, I do use greaseproof liners. I have a full post on the liners I use, as well as several sources here, https://www.glorioustreats.com/cupcake-basics-cupcake-liners/
Happy baking! Glory
Should the eggs and buttermilk be at room temp?
I generally use the eggs and milk (or buttermilk) directly from the fridge with no problems.
It seems a little unnecessary to post another glowing comment but – these really are the best vanilla cupcakes I’ve ever had. I had to bake them an extra 10 minutes (my oven is like that) and so they came out a little crunchy on top – probably left them in a little TOO long, but the texture was actually really neat with the fluffiness of the cupcake as a contrast! I cut out a small cone from the top of each cupcake once they were cooled, filled it in with blueberry pie filling, and topped with cream cheese frosting. THEY ARE AMAZING. THANK YOU.
Thanks so much for taking the time to leave such a nice comment. I appreciate every comment! =) The cupcakes filled with blueberry filling sound fantastic!