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Learn how to make the best vanilla cupcake recipe from scratch! This is my go-to recipe for soft, moist and fluffy cupcakes – you never need to use a box mix again. These are buttery cupcakes with a classic bakery flavor and go perfect with any frosting.
Why You’ll Love My Recipe
I’ve made this recipe more times than I can count, and they always come out amazing. This homemade cupcake recipe is as consistent as a box mix, but it’s from scratch: never dry and always with flat domes that hold as much frosting as you want. It’s a bakery-quality cupcake right in your own kitchen!
The secret to these perfect vanilla cupcakes is the that I use melted butter, which gives lots of buttery flavor but get moist and fluffy like when you use oil. Unlike a box mix, these cupcakes use real vanilla and buttermilk to ensure a moist texture that melts in your mouth.
Ingredients in Vanilla Cupcakes
- You do not need to use cake flour! Regular grocery store brand all-purpose flour is totally fine.
- I always start with melted Unsalted butter to keep the cupcakes moist. If you use salted butter, reduce added salt in the recipe by 1/4 tsp.
- I love the flavor of vanilla bean paste, but you can substitute a good quality pure vanilla extract.
- Using buttermilk instead of regular milk adds acidity to the batter, which breaks down gluten strands. This results in a much softer cupcake with a fine crumb that stays moist for a longer period. It’s not needed to activate the leavening (we use baking powder, not baking soda), so it makes it easy to substitute with milk or nondairy milk. Learn how to make your own buttermilk!
Variations
- Make gluten free vanilla cupcakes by using 1:1 gluten-free all-purpose flour.
- Make dairy free cupcakes using any nondairy milk and vegetable oil.
- Substitute brown sugar for granulated sugar to make brown sugar cupcakes.
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Dorothy’s Expert Cupcake Tips
- For a tender and velvet like crumb ensure your eggs and buttermilk are at true room temperature. Cold ingredients will not emulsify properly, which leads to a dense or greasy cupcake rather than a light and fluffy one.
- You know cupcakes are done baking when a toothpick comes out clean from the center. Know that every oven bakes differently – so keep an eye on them towards the end of baking so they don’t be come dry and over baked.
- To keep your cupcakes light and fluffy, be sure to measure your flour properly – using the spoon and level method (or weigh it using grams). Too much flour will make them tough and dense.
- I never have issues with this cupcake recipe doming. However, if you have issues, you can bake your cupcakes at 325°F instead of 350°F. A slightly lower temperature allows the cupcakes to rise more evenly without the edges setting too quickly and creating a high dome.
Vanilla Cupcakes Recipe
Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
- 1 ½ cups (186g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup (113g) unsalted butter, , melted
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or vanilla bean paste
- ¾ cup (178ml) buttermilk, (or combine 3/4 cup milk + 1 teaspoon white vinegar and let sit for 5 minutes)
For the frosting:
- 1 cup (113g) unsalted butter, , softened
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 cups (452g) powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- 1-2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Line cupcake tins with liners (makes 12-15).
- Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
- Add melted butter to a large bowl and mix in sugar with a hand mixer for 30 seconds until thick and yellow. Add eggs one at at time, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
- Add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Don’t over mix!
- Divide batter among liners, filling 2/3 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. (Mine took less than 20, so check at 15!) Cool completely before frosting!
- To make the frosting: Beat butter until creamy. Beat in salt and 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time until crumbly. Beat in vanilla and 1 tablespoon of heavy whipping cream. Add more cream as needed for desired consistency.
- Frost cupcakes by placing frosting in a pastry bag. I like the 1M tip, it gives pretty swirls. Add sprinkles for fun!
- Note: you can make the frosting the day before, but let it come to room temperature before using.
Notes
- No need to fill the cupcakes, I just wanted a little extra. These cupcakes would be great with chocolate frosting, and the vanilla buttercream would be good with any flavor cupcake!
- If you make the frosting alone, without the cupcakes, you can use salted butter if that’s what you have on hand. Just leave out the salt!
- You can substitute any kind of milk (or nondairy milk) for the buttermilk.
- You can substitute gluten-free 1:1 AP flour
- You can substitute oil or melted vegan butter sticks for a dairy-free cupcake.
- Optional Filling: Use lemon curd or caramel sauce or homemade whipped cream for filling the cupcakes if desired. The original recipe included whipped cream filling – to make that beat 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream with 2 tablespoons powdered or granulated sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract until stiff peaks form.
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Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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How to make Vanilla Cupcakes
1. You can use a hand mixer or an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment to mix the cake batter. We don’t need to traditionally “cream” the butter and sugar because the butter is melted.
2. Add eggs and extract before adding dry ingredients. The mixture will be smooth.
3. Mix all the dry ingredients first – use the spoon and level method to measure flour accurately. The key is not to overmix the batter. Mix only until the flour is absorbed.
4. Once you have your vanilla cake batter, it’s a blank canvas. You can add sprinkles to make funfetti cupcakes or use mini muffin pans to make mini cupcakes.
Optional Filling
If you want to fill your baked and cooled cupcakes you can do so – these are fantastic filled with lemon curd or homemade whipped cream, or even caramel sauce.
It’s easy to fill cupcakes by adding the filling to a piping bag with a skinny round tip – just press it into the top of the cupcake and press to fill.
If you want to fill the cupcake with something more solid, like making piñata cupcakes or strawberry shortcake cupcakes, just cut a small round out of the top and fill as desired, topping the hole with some of what you removed.
My daughter loved this recipe for cupcakes. I was wondering could this be adapted to make a cake? A simple 2 layer cake?
These are great. I give it five stars, however, I would like the texture to be lighter and airier, possibly more spongy (?). My wife very much liked the texture, though, so it’s just a personal thing.
What do you think about trying the following: creaming the butter without melting it, adding a little more baking powder, and whipping separated egg whites separately and folding them in?
These cupcakes are moist and delicious. They bake up perfectly and don’t dry out like some of the other cupcake recipes I’ve tried. Winner!!
The directions for the filling says to whisk in both extracts. There is only one extract listed, which is vanilla bean paste. What needs to be edited, the ingredients or directions?
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