Vanilla Cupcakes
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy.
Made with buttermilk and topped with cream cheese frosting, these are the most luscious vanilla cupcakes.
When my kids were little, I started a baking business specializing in cakes and cupcakes, mostly for children’s parties. Before I began, I spent weeks testing every type of cake recipe under the sun, often baking into the middle of the night. Michael would wake up in the morning to find the kitchen overflowing with all flavors of cakes and cupcakes. He thought I’d lost my mind—little did he know I was just discovering my passion for developing recipes, which was the motivation for starting my blog. These are the vanilla cupcakes that won me over. They have a fluffy, downy texture and rich vanilla flavor. Top them with swirls of cream cheese frosting or rich chocolate buttercream.
If you’d like to make the recipe as a layer cake, it works beautifully; simply divide the batter into two 8-inch cake pans and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. The recipe also works in a 9×13-in cake pan, baked for 30 minutes.
What you’ll need to make vanilla Cupcakes
Step-by-Step Instructions
In a medium bowl, combine the buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla.
Whisk well and set aside. The mixture will start to look curdled as it sits; that’s okay.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or beaters, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
Beat on low speed for 30 seconds to combine.
Add the soft butter and half of the buttermilk mixture.
Mix on low speed until moistened but still a little crumbly, about 1 minute.
With the mixer running on low, gradually add the remaining buttermilk mixture,
Increase the speed to medium and mix for three minutes, stopping once to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. The batter should look pale and creamy. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl again, making sure the batter is evenly mixed.
Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared muffin pans, filling the cups almost full.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, switching the pans from top to bottom and back to front midway through. Remove from the oven when the cupcakes are set, lightly golden, and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean (note that one pan may finish cooking before the other). Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
Frost the cooled cupcakes with icing and store in an airtight container until ready to serve.
You may also like
- How to Make Buttermilk
- Chocolate Cupcakes with Creamy Chocolate Frosting
- Vanilla Birthday Cake with Old-Fashioned Vanilla Buttercream
- Red Velvet Cupcakes
- Vanilla Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Vanilla Cupcakes
Made with buttermilk and topped with cream cheese frosting, these are the most luscious vanilla cupcakes.
Ingredients
For the Cupcakes
- 1 cup buttermilk (see note)
- 4 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2¾ cups cake flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off (see note)
- 2 cups sugar
- Heaping ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the pans
- Cream cheese frosting or rich chocolate buttercream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° and set an oven rack in the middle position. Line two 12-cup muffin pans with paper liners. Lightly grease the top of the muffin pans with butter so the cupcake tops don't stick.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. Set aside. (Note that the mixture will start to look curdled as it sits; that's okay.)
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or beaters, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds to combine. Add the soft butter and half of the buttermilk mixture and mix on low speed until moistened but still a little crumbly, about 1 minute. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the remaining buttermilk mixture, then increase the speed to medium and mix for three minutes, stopping once to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. The batter should look pale and creamy. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl again, making sure the batter is evenly mixed.
- Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared muffin pans, filling the cups almost full. Bake for 20 to 23 minutes, switching the pans from top to bottom and back to front midway through. Remove from the oven when the cupcakes are set, lightly golden, and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean (note that one pan may finish cooking before the other). Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely. Frost the cupcakes and store in an airtight container until ready to serve. The cupcakes are best served fresh on the day they are made, but they will keep nicely for up to 2 days.
- Note: If you’d like to make your own buttermilk, check out the easy method here.
- Note: Cake flour gives the cupcakes a fine texture. All-purpose flour can be substituted, but the cupcakes will be a bit heavier. To make your own cake flour, you can whisk together 2½ cups all-purpose flour and ¼ cup cornstarch.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: The cupcakes can be frozen without the frosting for up to 3 months. Let them cool completely, wrap them individually in plastic wrap, and then in foil. Thaw overnight on the countertop before serving. (Wait until the cupcakes are defrosted to ice them.)
Nutrition Information
Powered by 
- Serving size: 1 cupcake
- Calories: 379
- Fat: 19 g
- Saturated fat: 12 g
- Carbohydrates: 49 g
- Sugar: 37 g
- Protein: 4 g
- Sodium: 155 mg
- Cholesterol: 83 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
See more recipes:
Comments
Add a Comment
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I think i have got confused – has this recipe recently changed the instructions? I seem to remember beating butter and sugar for five minutes, then adding eggs before buttermilk etc – I have this vanilla cupcake recipe down as one of my favourite recipes of yours, but have I got it confused with one of your other cake recipes? Thanks!
Hi LP, You’re not crazy – I recently updated the recipe to use a different method which makes the cupcakes fluffier (I mention the update in the second paragraph and include a link to the original recipe, but it’s easy to miss!). If you’d prefer to make the old recipe, you can find it here.
Thank you! Almost as soon as I posted this I found where you had put that in the page 😁 many thanks – I’ll try out the tweaked one as well soon which I’m sure is just as delicious!
these cupcakes changed my life 😍😍😍. wish i could put 6 stars
This recipe is so amazing and mouth watering and very good
This recipe is so amazing
Jenn’s recipes are ALWAYS a big hit. My son requested vanilla cupcakes for his birthday and loved these. The icing is delicious. Theses cupcakes are moist and flavorful, but best served the same day. Even refrigerated in an airtight container, they do not stay moist and fresh. I would definitely take them to a pot luck or serve them to guests, but they must be made the same day. Thanks Jenn!
Jenn’s vanilla cupcakes are the best!! The only changes I made were to the frosting. (I’m not a fan of the heavy butter flavor in my frosting.) I cut the butter to 1 stick, added the rest of the box of confectioner’s sugar, as well as 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk. The result was lighter, both in texture and whiteness. I then piped the frosting onto the cupcakes. Yummy.
Thank you for your consistently successful & delicious recipes! I have both your cookbooks plus a huge binder dedicated to all your recipes that I’ve printed! These vanilla cupcakes should be perfect for the birthday celebration we’re planning for a 6 year old. I want to make them ahead, freeze them, & frost them on the day of the party. Questions:
(1) Should the paper liners be greased or oiled before filling (for easy removal)?
(2) Do I have to wrap each individual cupcake SEPARATELY, one at a time, before freezing?
(3) After thawing the cupcakes, & before icing them, would it bring a more light, moist &
freshly baked taste if the cupcakes were reheated slightly, cooled, & then frosted?
I greatly appreciate your guidance!
Hi Toni, Thanks so much for your nice words about the recipes and support of the cookbooks! To answer your questions:
1. No, you should treat the top of the cupcake pan, but the liners don’t need to be treated.
2. Yes, for best results, I would wrap each cupcake before freezing.
3. No, I don’t think you need to reheat and cool them before frosting.
Hope that helps!
Beautiful cupcakes – thanks, Jenn!
Made them twice, once for the family and once for church, and they turned out moist and flavoursome both times. (For icing, used King Arthur quick buttercream recipe as I needed pink and white rosettes). Also substituted buttermilk with a blend of milk and sour cream.
For those who live in the UK, I would say that this recipe comes very close to the Fiona Cairns cupcakes you can buy from Waitrose. (Especially if brushed with a simple syrup before icing).
We noticed the sponge has quite a fine, close grain and is fairly dense (in a good way) – which was a change for us as we are used to very light, highly-leavened, and often very powdery-dry cupcakes which are available in our supermarkets (UK). These seem to get softer and more buttery with time, too (a couple of days), which is a unique bonus.
I would be grateful for your advice on whether this texture (fine, close grain, fairly dense, yet crumb separates easily and melts on tongue) sounds about right? I am never sure whether I am making correct compensation for UK flour, or whether to add an extra spoon or two.
Thanks very much again!
So glad you enjoyed them, Savanna! Yes, the texture you’ve described sounds right for these, so I don’t think any changes are necessary. Hope that helps!
My family may disown me for saying this, but I am not a huge fan of chocolate cupcakes. They love your chocolate cupcake recipe, but this one is my favorite. I ate more than one when we made these and plan to make these for my upcoming birthday. The frosting part of the recipe makes way too much for our family, so we adjusted it to fit our desires.
The taste itself is pretty mediocre IMO. Most of the flavor comes from the frosting. But it’s soooo thick with cream cheese, butter and icing sugar that it makes me feel sick after. I gave it two stars because it’s really easy to make. I’d rather just get cupcakes in the bakery section at the grocery store…