Easy Vanilla Cupcakes!
*This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details!*
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!
Find my other Recipes on my Recipes Page!
You can find me on:
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
Youtube
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.
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!
Hi Jane.
These are delicious 😋 I need to make just a small batch of 6 cupcakes- would you suggest halving the recipe amounts? Also how many eggs would you use?
If it’s not feasible I will just make the full 12. Thank you.
Hey! So the best thing to do is to make 4, 8 or 12 – as it makes it easier with the eggs! Use 1/3 of the mix for 4, or 2/3 of the mix for 8!
Which vanilla extract would you recommend? I’m running low and wondered if I’d find a good one online
I only ever use Nielsen Massey! X
Hi Jane! I’m so happy to have come across your page. These were the best cupcakes I’ve ever made! Absolutely delicious and so light! Thank you. I’ve also made your biscoff tray bake this week which my husband took into work and they went down a storm. Can’t wait to try something new, struggling to get supplies in at the moment with lockdown! Thanks again! Xx
Yum! 5th recipe I’ve made from your site, all delicious, thanks for sharing 😀
Have just baked these and they look great! Only thing however is that mine have came away from the cases, do you know what usually causes this happen?
Sometimes that can happen when the cake isn’t quite baked enough, or they’re kept in a warm environment so they essentially sweat and peel!
Can I use stork for these instead of unsalted butter? Thankyou xx
Only for the sponge, never ever for buttercream.
I used Stork for buttercream! Is that really bad??
In my opinion, you need to use actual butter and not a spread for buttercream.
How much do the medium eggs weigh? And are the eggs added a little at a time before the dry ingredients or eggs and dry ingredients are mixed in together at the same time?
They are just the medium egg size available at the supermarket – I use three as the recipe says. And I add the flour, eggs and vanilla in at the same time, as the recipe says.
I came across your site Yesterday and found these vanilla cupcake they looked really good so I followed the recipe step by step and they were perfect the best cupcakes I have ever made so I had to let you know . Thank you for sharing I think I will be spending a lot of time on this site
Hi Jane,
Love your baking tips and so far the cakes I have baked have been fool proof. I’m wanting to make 15 of these cupcakes. How would I adapt the recipe please?
Thank you x
I would use 200g butter/sugar/flour and 4 eggs, and split between the 15 cases! x
Hi Jane I’ve just made these cupcakes and although they taste delicious they’ve shrunk 😔. I needed to make 24 so I doubled the mixture however I only had large eggs so I used 5 instead of 6. Could this be the reason?
Do you mean they caved in the middle? It could be the eggs, or they were finished baking yet!