These Vanilla Cupcakes will easily become your go-to cupcake recipe! These soft, buttery cupcakes are completely from scratch using the reverse creaming method. It’s the best vanilla cupcake you will ever taste!
Top these with my Perfect Buttercream for the perfect birthday cupcake!
Everyone Needs a Vanilla Cupcake Recipe That Always Turns Out Perfect!
Today we’re taking it back to basics! This vanilla cupcake recipe is one I shared many years ago, back in 2013 but I thought needed an update. The recipe remains the same, but I wanted to include some more tips and tricks for ultimate cupcake success. PLUS, I felt like they needed some pretty new pictures!
A classic vanilla cupcake might seem like a basic or no-brainer type of recipe to bake, but I will tell you that it took me many years to perfect! There was a lot of trial and error that went into this recipe to get the texture moist, light, and soft! So many recipes I have tried in the past have been too dense, or too dry, or too too oily. But this one is soft, buttery, and light in texture with the perfect dome.
How To Make The Best Vanilla Cupcakes
The trick I use in this vanilla cake recipe is the Reverse Creaming Method. I have used this in a few other recipes on my site, like my Confetti Cupcakes and LOVE how they turn out. Reverse creaming produces an ultra-fine crumb, which makes these cupcakes super tender!
What Is Reverse Creaming?
Reverse Creaming is when you mix the butter into the dry ingredients before mixing in the remaining ingredients and liquids. Generally when you bake a cake you cream the butter and sugar together to start and then add the dry ingredients in alternating additions with the wet.
Reverse creaming evenly combines the butter into the dry ingredients creating a coarse sand texture, coating all the dry ingredients with fat, and then add in the remaining ingredients. We’re always told when making cake batter NOT TO OVER MIX! because over-mixing batter can cause more gluten to form, creating a denser, less light and airy cake. BUT reverse creaming coats the flour in fat which minimizes gluten formation. This also creates smaller air particles being formed in the mixing, producing a finer crumb, and a perfect dome.
Ingredients:
- Cake flour
- All purpose flour
- Granulated sugar
- Baking powder
- Kosher salt
- Room temperature butter
- Large eggs
- Milk
- Vanilla extract. I like to use pure vanilla to impart the most vanilla flavor. Adding vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste will really amp this up too!
Let’s get started, the process is super easy, but just make sure to follow a few quick steps to ensure perfection!
- Prepare oven and muffin tin. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners and set aside.
- Combine dry ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment add the cake flour, all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and stir together using paddle attachment for 1 minute on low speed.
- Add butter and eggs. With mixer still on low, drop in butter, a few cubes at a time, continuing until all butter is in and mixer resembles coarse sand. The add in the eggs one at a time until combined.
- Add milk and vanilla. With mixer still on low slowly pour in milk and vanilla. Turn the mixer to medium and beat for 2 minutes until batter is smooth, scraping sides of bowl as necessary, making sure batter is well combined.
- Add batter to cupcake tin and bake. Fill liners 2/3 full (about 1/4 cup batter) and bake for 15-20 minutes until centers are set and toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool and decorate! Allow to cool completely before frosting.
What Frosting Recipe Should I Use On Vanilla Cupcakes?
- Buttercream. Of course this is my go-to on vanilla cupcakes! It’s a traditional American Buttercream made with butter and powdered sugar/confectioners sugar and it’s what I have frosted on the cupcakes in the pictures featured here!
- Chocolate Frosting. A vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting is a classic, and my Creamy Chocolate Frosting Recipe is the BEST!
- Perfect Party Frosting. This recipe is a marshmallow buttercream with sprinkles INSIDE! It’s a fantastic recipe!
- Pumpkin Butter Frosting. This is a great recipe to give your cupcakes a fall twist!
- 2 Ingredient White Chocolate Buttercream. Creamy, decadent, with the perfect amount of sweetness, this recipe is silky and rich!
- Swiss Meringue Buttercream
- Cream Cheese Frosting
Feel free to get creative with your frosting. I used a Wilton 1M tip for the swirls in these photos, and it’s my go-to piping tip! And of course don’t forget the sprinkles!
Print
My Favorite Vanilla Cupcakes
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 24 cupcakes 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Description
This vanilla cupcake recipe is easy, soft, and moist! The perfect birthday cupcake topped with a tall swirl of frosting!
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup cake flour
- 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup butter, room temperature, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Prepare oven and muffin tin. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners and set aside.
- Combine dry ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment add the cake flour, all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and stir together using paddle attachment for 1 minute on low speed.
- Add butter and eggs. With mixer still on low, drop in butter, a few cubes at a time, continuing until all butter is in and mixer resembles coarse sand. The add in the eggs one at a time until combined.
- Add milk and vanilla. With mixer still on low slowly pour in milk and vanilla. Turn the mixer to medium and beat for 2 minutes until batter is smooth, scraping sides of bowl as necessary, making sure batter is well combined.
- Add batter to cupcake tin and bake. Fill liners 2/3 full (about 1/4 cup batter) and bake for 15-20 minutes until centers are set and toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool and decorate! Allow to cool completely before frosting.
Notes
Store airtight at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cupcake
- Calories: 168
- Sugar: 15.2 g
- Sodium: 90.9 mg
- Fat: 4.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 28.5 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Cholesterol: 31.2 mg
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Love this recipe, it’s wonderful. I used my own free range eggs in this recipe but because they have such a strong flavour I found my first batch tasted a little ‘eggy’. I adjusted the recipe the second time around and just left out two of the egg yolks (4 x egg whites, 2 x egg yolks) and the results were magnificent. Thought I would mention it incase anyone else is having problem with this.
Thanks so much for the recipe, it is now one of my favourite ‘go to’ recipes.
wow. These are superb! I did not have cake flour, just AP FLOUR, so mine were probably more dense, but oh my! They are still so good! Tender crumb, buttery, but still not too dense. I make cupcakes the cheaters way all the time, with a box mix, but these are now my number one recipe for cupcakes! They hold up well to a good buttercream frosting. I frosted mine with a cream cheese buttercream and covered that in sweetened coconut flakes and they were beyond words! This is a good recipe! Delicious!
In case anyone was wondering, this recipe does make a fabulous cake. You do have to cook it a little longer and the edges will be slightly darker brown (while waiting for the middle to cook) but it still tastes pretty amazing.
I’ve made it with two 8 inch round pans several times and it does dome up pretty high so I highly suggest letting it cool upside down on a cooling rack (so the top dome flattens). It tastes better than a professional cake from the store.
Update – I wasn’t sure about how these would come out because the butter is added to all the dry to start, and I’ve never done a recipe like that. I just made them, and they are awesome! The only thing I need to work on is making sure I get the same amount in each cupcake. I use a scoop, but some came out too full and overflowed a bit. But this is by far the best vanilla cupcake recipe I’ve tried!
Hi,
I’ve read all the comments and am going to try these cupcakes. My only concern is that I’ve never mixed the dry ingredients with the sugar, then added the butter and liquids – is there a particular reason for this method? I’m a little scared, and part of me wants to cream the butter and the sugar, add the eggs, and alternate the flour with the milk, just as in every other cupcake recipe I’ve tried. But will they come out the same? I’m just worried I’d mess something up if I did it your way, because I have a tendency to overmix, and 2 minutes sounds like a lot! Thoughts??
Thank you so much for this recipe. It is great. If I wanted to turn this into a champagne cake how would you suggest I do that without messing with the texture?
Thanks for sharing! My SO is not much of a sweets person and hardly ever eats anything but he scarfed these down and begged me to make him a cake version for his upcoming birthday. So my question is, are there any alterations I should do when making a double layer cake using this recipe? Thanks!!
This is my go to vanilla cupcake. They are perfect every time! I completely agree with you when it comes to vanilla cakes, that’s why I was wondering if this recipe would work as a layer cake? Thanks!
I’ve had bad luck the last few days with my baking but these cupcakes totally redeemed me. I took them to work and they didn’t last 2 minutes. They were perfect and I loved how the dough wasn’t wattery so it was easy to just spoon it into the pans. Thanks for sharing!
hello what should I do if my oven can only be heated to 250C? Sorryy I have never baked before but I am trying to surprise my friend on valentines day so this is a bit urgent!! please help 🙂
I really want to try making your recipe after reading all these comments!
My temps are listed in Fahrenheit.