Easy Vanilla Cupcakes!
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A staple for any household – delicious, moist & light vanilla cupcakes with a creamy vanilla buttercream frosting!
Easy vanilla cupcakes
I love cupcakes and I love all different sorts of flavours and decorations, but I realised that I had never posted my easy vanilla cupcake recipe with pictures and method! Shock and horror!! This obviously had to change very rapidly, so here it is!
Cupcake sponges
A sponge like this is super basic, but it’s classic. It’s meant to have few ingredients, yet work together to create a beautifully light sponge that can be used for so many other cupcakes. The basic ingredient rules of a vanilla cupcake are:
- Butter – For a cupcake sponge, you can use either a baking spread, or unsalted butter. People have different preferences, but for a simple sponge like this I tend to use a baking spread
- Sugar – For a vanilla cupcake, I would always use caster sugar. You want a white sugar so it doesn’t impact the colour, fluffiness or flavour of the sponge.
- Flour – I always use self raising flour, but you can make your own by adding 2 level tsps of baking powder to 150g of plain flour, and whisking in before using in the recipe
- Eggs – when making a simple sponge like this the amount of eggs can vary. I tend to stick to 3 medium eggs for 150g of other ingredients, but its best to weigh the eggs in shells before using, and then match the weights of the butter, sugar and flour to that weight.
- Flavour – obviously, vanilla. I use pods, paste or extract – I will never touch essence.
Frosting
When it comes to the frosting on a cupcake like this, I often go for the American buttercream style frosting as it really is so easy to make.
- Butter – In my opinion, you must ALWAYS use block butter when making buttercream. A spread is not butter, and often results in an unpleasant frosting. Let it come to room temperature and then beat like crazy
- Sugar – icing sugar is always what you need in a buttercream, beat it into the butter like crazy again and you will have a basic buttercream
- Vanilla – obviously, as these are vanilla flavoured, I added some vanilla to the buttercream as well.
If you want a frosting that is slightly different however, you can do cream cheese frosting, or a Swiss meringue buttercream – both work well when vanilla flavoured, and they all bring different elements.
Adaptable recipe
These cupcakes are always a hit with anybody who eats them, doesn’t matter what age or gender, normal vanilla cupcakes absolutely rule all! You can keep them as simple as you like or you can jazz them up with pretty colourful sprinkles or some beautiful baking cups like my photos!
Along with my chocolate cupcakes recipe, I have used these for years and have never changed them – they’re absolutely failproof in my eyes! (And they’re super addictive – I always want vanilla cupcakes when im hungry). I even have a vegan version, and a gluten free version of these too!
Other cupcake recipes
I love basic baking, and these are definitely perfect for that. Delicious moist cupcakes with a hint of vanilla, dolloped and piped with a tonne of delicious creamy vanilla frosting… heaven.
I have tonnes of cupcake recipes on my blog, some of my favourites being my red velvet cupcakes, Biscoff cupcakes, lemon drizzle cupcakes, and my Oreo cupcakes… so I hope these make a great addition! Enjoy!
Easy Vanilla Cupcakes!
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 150 g unsalted butter (or baking spread)
- 150 g caster sugar
- 3 medium eggs
- 150 g self raising flour
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp whole milk (optional)
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
- 150 g unsalted butter (room temp)
- 350 g icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2-4 tbsp whole milk (optional)
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Preheat your oven to 170ºC/160ºC fan and line a 12 hole muffin tray with large cupcake cases/muffin cases.
- Cream together the unsalted butter and caster sugar with an electric beater until smooth.
- Add in the eggs, self raising flour and vanilla extract and beat again for about about 20-30 seconds on a medium speed - it really doesn't take too long, you don't want to over beat it!
- Scoop the mixture evenly into your cases and bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until cooked through! Leave to cool fully on a wire rack.
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
- Beat the softened unsalted butter until smooth - this can take a couple of minutes.
- Add in the icing sugar 1/3 at a time, making sure the sugar is fully incorporated until moving on!
- Once all of the icing sugar is in the frosting mix, keep on beating the frosting and add the vanilla extract whilst doing so.
- Once combined, add your frosting to a large piping bag with a piping tip of your choice.
- Decorate your cupcakes however you like (I use lots and lots of sprinkles!) and enjoy!
Notes
- These cupcakes are delicious as they are but you can jazz them up a bit with some chocolate chips - adding 100g to your mix will do nicely!
- These cupcakes will last in an airtight container for 2-3 days, or you can freeze them for up to 3 months!
- I used this Muffin Tin
- I use this 5cm scoop to portion into my baking cups
- I get my baking cups from here - Iced Jems
- I get my sprinkles from here - Iced Jems
ENJOY!
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J x
© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.
Hi Jane – I’d like to make coloured frosting. Would food colouring work with this frosting? The paste food colouring not liquid food colouring.
Thanks
Yes it would – I generally use sugar flair, progel, wilton or colour splash brands! x
Hi Jane,
I made these cupcakes today and I don’t know what went wrong but they’ve got a really odd taste! I was very careful when measuring out the ingredients and I baked for 18 mins!
The only reason they would have an odd taste is because of the ingredients being off or measured incorrectly – it’s a standard victoria sponge recipe so there’s nothing weird in it! x
Hi Jane I’ve made these vanilla cupcakes loads they are delicious. I wanted to add in funfetti I have (iced Jems ) , do you think 35g would be ok. One time I put too much into a mixture and was wet xx
The sprinkles wouldn’t make a mixture wet – so that must have been something else. But yes about 35g should be okay!
Hi Jane. How do you recommend storing these cupcakes if I bake and don’t want to decorate for couple days ? Will they go dry in a plastic air tight container ?
I would just store them at room temp in a container – they last about 3-4+ days usually in total!
Sandra
My cupcakes care coming away from the cases what am I doing wrong
Thanks
That usually means they are under baked or there is too much moisture in the storage.
Hey Jane
I need to make 16 cupcakes. How can I adapt this recipe please? X
I would use 1/3 more – so 4 eggs, 200g butter/sugar/flour – and split between the 16! x
Can I use this recipe to make a cake rather than cupcakes?
You can do, but I do have a vanilla cake recipe you can follow!
I don’t have unsalted butter can I use Stork? I have left over buttercream from the carrot cake recipe of yours (was delicious) let me know please x
Yes you can use stork for the cake sponges! x
Hi Jane I made these last nite for the first time and they were unbelievably good 😍just so moist and delicious. Two things I want to ask u I used those greaseproof baking cups and they were so great. The only thing I found was they would take a lot more mixture than this recipe. Is there any way I can adjust recipe to get a bigger cupcake or can I just double recipe to fill cups more.. They are so perfect don’t want to risk ruining them. Also is your vanilla sponge as moist as this as omg I would love my cakes to be as moist and fluffy as these. Thank you.
Hey! It may be that the ones you have are larger, as I typically interchange the ones I use with normal cupcake cases! If in doubt, just increase the recipe to fill them more (and the baking time will increase!) Xx
Thank you.xx
HI Jane, when you say ‘cream the butter and sugar until smooth’ is that just a short 30 second mix on a medium/high speed or longer to achieve something more light and fluffy? I tried this recipe with Stork today and they tasted like Stork- a bit salty and synthetic – eww! The mix wasn’t very thick and didn’t fill my cupcake cases as much as I expected (I weighed my ingredients carefully) TIA x.
I mix them together till they’re smooth and creamy/fluffy! Its usually about 30-60 seconds or so! I nearly always use stork for cakes and have never had a funny taste! There’s no reason why the mixture shouldn’t be a thick cake mixture like normal though?! x
Hi Jane!! I love your blog! Just wondering if these cupcakes would be suitable for someone with a nut allergy?
You need to check every ingredient label yourself, that isn’t something I can answer!
I’ve made these today, they took about 40 minutes to cook and have come out dry. Any idea where i might have gone wrong? Followed the recipe amounts and technique fully, fan oven at 160 prewarmed. Going to have another go tomorrow but wondering what it is that hasn’t worked today to try to fix it with the next batch!
There is no way that they should have taken so long, the dryness comes from being over baked. Stick to the advised times and they’ll be fine!