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These Homemade Classic Vanilla Cupcakes will become your new staple cake recipe. Tender and moist vanilla cupcakes are topped with sweet buttercream frosting.
This recipe for homemade classic vanilla cupcakes is the only recipe you’ll ever need again. Made with simple, easy to find ingredients, these cupcakes turn out perfectly every time. They’re incredibly moist, tender, and soft – the perfect vanilla cupcake.
I’ve topped these cupcakes with a classic american buttercream frosting. Another great option is my Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. Either would be a great choice when frosting vanilla cupcakes.
Why Cake Flour?
Why Cake Flour?My must for this recipe – cake flour. Yes, this recipe can be made with all-purpose flour. However, using cake flour will give you a much more tender and soft cupcake. Cake flour is made for baking cakes, so why not grab a box to keep on hand in your home.
I like to use Swans Down cake flour, because it’s easy to find in all of my local grocery stores. One box is only a few dollars and in my experience, makes a world of difference when baking cakes. After giving it a try in my own recipes, it’s the only way I will bake yellow cakes.
Homemade cake flour can be done, but in my experience it doesn’t turn out nearly as good as using actual cake flour. To make cake flour, measure one cup of all-purpose flour. Then, replace 2 tablespoons of flour with cornstarch.
If you give this a try, let me know how it goes in the comments below!
Want more cupcake recipes? Try my Easy Homemade Chocolate Cupcakes, Fluffy White Cupcakes with Strawberry Filling, or my fall favorite, Applesauce Cupcakes with Browned Butter Frosting.
Measuring your cupcake batter is a simple way to make sure your cupcakes bake up into a uniform size. I like using a large cookie scoop (amazon affiliate link) to make sure that each cupcake liner contains the same amount of cake batter. If you don’t have one, it holds 3 tablespoons of batter.
This recipe will make enough batter for exactly 15 cupcakes using my measuring method above. If you only have a 12 cupcake pan, do not distribute all of the batter between 12 cupcakes. Your batter will spill over the edges when baking.
Instead, Evenly fill your 12 cupcake liners, bake, and discard the rest of the batter (or bake a second batch of 3). I like to keep a 24 cupcake pan on hand for these occasions.
Homemade Classic Vanilla Cupcakes
Ingredients
Yellow Cupcakes
- 1 1/2 cups cake flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
American Buttercream Frosting
- 3 cups confectioner's sugar
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 3-4 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Yellow Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake pan with liners, set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the ingredients: flour, baking soda, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients: butter, sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla extract.
- Add half of dry ingredients to wet ingredients, stir until combined. Add remaining dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Pour batter into cupcake liners, filling halfway full (3 tablespoons of batter in each liner). Bake in preheated oven for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Remove pan from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before transferring cupcakes to a wire rack to finish cooling.
American Buttercream Frosting
- In a large bowl, whisk or sift the confectioner's sugar to remove clumps.
- Add room temperature butter and vanilla. Slowly mix until ingredients are fully combined. Then, whip at high speed for 2-3 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add heavy cream a tablespoon at a time and continue mixing until desired consistency is reached.
- Pipe or spread frosting with a knife onto cupcakes and serve.
Nutrition
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I’ve tried this recipe twice and both times I made exactly 15 cupcakes. Both times batter spilled over the sides and the cupcake sank in the middle. But they taste amazing! I double checked my ingredients and measurements and they match the recipe. Any idea on what to tweak? I love the flavor but they keep turning out ugly.
Thanks!
Hi Jaclyn! My first thought is that maybe the batter is being over-mixed, which will whip air into the batter, doing two things. First, there will be a larger amount of batter in each cup, which will cause them to overflow when they bake. Second, once they start baking, the cupcakes will deflate, causing the middles to sink. I’ve had this happen to me before, and I was over-mixing the batter. Do you think that might be it?