Everyone loves cupcakes! This is the only vanilla cupcake recipe you will need. They are super easy to make and the texture is light, fluffy, and melt-in-your-mouth good.
Watch the video tutorial below and you will be a pro in no time. We love these with our Cupcake Frosting because a cupcake isn’t a cupcake without frosting.
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Watch Vanilla Cupcakes Video Tutorial!
These cupcakes are perfect for birthday parties and baby showers and they always disappear fast which is why I always make a double batch for gatherings. They are quick and easy to make and homemade cupcakes taste way better than boxed cupcake mix.
Ingredients for Vanilla Cupcakes:
This recipe makes exactly 12 cupcakes and requires simple ingredients: all-purpose flour, butter, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, baking powder, salt and vanilla. The combination of softened butter and buttermilk creates an amazingly soft cupcake crumb that just melts in your mouth. Also, if you haven’t tried our (2-ingredient) Homemade Vanilla Extract, it will take your baked goods to the next level.
How to Make Vanilla Cupcakes:
These cupcakes are easy to master and you will be making bakery-quality cupcakes in no time.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt.
- In a second bowl (or bowl of your stand mixer), beat together softened butter and sugar on medium-high speed 5 minutes until thick and fluffy.
- Beat in eggs 1 at a time, mixing to incorporate with each egg then blend in vanilla and scrape down the bowl.
- Reduce mixer to medium speed and add the flour in thirds, alternating with adding the 1/2 cup buttermilk and beating well between additions.
- Pour batter into 12 lined muffin tins, filling 2/3 full. Bake in the center of the oven at 350˚F for 20-23 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool 5 minutes in the pan then remove cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.
Tips for the BEST Cupcakes:
- Room Temperature Ingredients – eggs, buttermilk and butter must be at room temperature to keep your batter an even consistency.
- Alternate Adding Flour and Buttermilk – this keeps the mixture uniform and well blended. If you add in all of the flour or buttermilk at once, it can saturate the creamed butter and cause the mixture to separate. Mix well between each addition.
- Measure Correctly – be sure to use the proper measuring cups for wet and dry ingredients. Watch our video on measuring ingredients to ensure great results every time.
- Don’t Overfill – Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full or they will overflow and cause a muffin top. If you divide evenly between 12 cupcakes, you should have exactly enough batter. A trigger release Ice Cream Scoop makes portioning easier.
How to Decorate Cupcakes:
Once your cupcakes are cooled to room temperature, it’s time to decorate. This is a great vanilla cupcake base for just about any kind of frosting and toppings. We pipe frosting on with a pastry bag and our favorite Wilton 1M Tip. We have so many frosting options so pick your craving:
- Vanilla Cupcake Frosting – our go-to cupcake frosting
- Swiss Meringue Buttercream – well worth the extra effort
- Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting – whipped and decadent
- Blackberry Frosting – you’ll love the flavor and color
Common Questions:
Can I Make Cupcakes Ahead? Once cupcakes are at room temperature, cover and keep at room temperature overnight or refrigerate if storing for longer. After cupcakes are frosted, refrigerate until ready to serve. Cupcakes are great served chilled or at room temperature because they don’t harden with refrigeration.
Can I Use This Batter to Make a Cake? We’ve had great results turning it into a Vanilla Cake. You would need to double the recipe for two 9-inch cake layers.
Can I Substitute the Buttermilk? Plain kefir will also work well instead of buttermilk. You can also make your own buttermilk at a ratio of 1 cup whole milk to 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice. Combine and let it sit 10 minutes to curdle then stir and use.
How Long to Bake Cupcakes? Bake until the tops are springy and a toothpick inserted int the center comes out clean. These were perfectly baked at 350˚F for 22 minutes in a conventional oven.
More Cupcake Recipes:
Who can resist a cupcake? They’re just so cute and easy to love. We enjoy getting creative with cupcakes and they are one of the easiest desserts to make. These are our top-rated cupcake recipes:
- Moist Chocolate Cupcakes – this is a great base and so easy
- Pumpkin Cupcakes – with a marshmallow-soft frosting
- Honey Cupcakes – with a cherry filling
- Dark Chocolate Cupcakes – with white chocolate frosting
Perfect Vanilla Cupcake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup buttermilk, or plain kefir, room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a cupcake/muffin pan with cupcake liners.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 1/4 cups flour, 1 1/4 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. Set flour mix aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed 5 minutes until thick and fluffy, scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Add eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition then scrape down the bowl. Add 2 tsp vanilla and beat to combine.
- Reduce mixer speed to medium and add the flour mixture in thirds alternating with the buttermilk, mixing to incorporate with each addition. Scrape down the bowl as needed and beat until just combined and smooth, and don't overmix. Divide the batter evenly into a 12-count lined muffin or cupcake pan, filling 2/3 full.
- Bake for 20-23 minutes at 350 °F, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature before frosting.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
This recipe was first published in June 2012 (below is the original photo). After testing countless batches, we improved the recipe, swapping out oil for softened butter and took out the baking soda to create a super soft crumb. Everyone agrees, these are the best cupcakes. Just read the reviews!
P.S. Thank you all for trying this recipe and sharing it with the people you love.
I’ve been trying recipes for vanilla cupcakes that’s light and doesn’t dried up the next day. Will be trying this! Question, the only cake flour I can find here is a self raising cake flour. Can I use that? Also, the all purpose flour I use is Robin Hood brand (I’m in Canada) Do you know if it’s the same quality as the one you use? Thanks 🙂
Canadian flour should work fine for these cupcakes, I don’t know how self raising flour will change the outcome. Hope this helps :).
Great recipe Natasha..made these and they were perfect..light&fluffy..!i dont get cake flour where i live..so made cake flour by removing 1tsp all purpose flour and added 1tsp cornflour (for 1cup APF)..added a bit of lemon zest and chocochips to the batter.thanks a lot for the perfect recipe..
I bet they were amazing with your add-ins! 🙂 I’m so glad you loved the recipe. 🙂
The brand is Brodie xxx, maybe this flour doesn’t work for this recipe, I am going to try with an other flour, just to be sure
thanks!
I haven’t tried that one so I can’t recommend it, sorry.. My sister has made these with all-purpose flour and they still work, just not as fluffy 🙂
Hi,
Thanks for this recipe, I have a question I bought the cake flour, I realized that it says that the flour has baking powder and salt already added.Do you think I have to omit them for this recipe?
What brand of flour did you buy? Is it meant for a specific recipe? It seems unusual that it would have that already. I used the soft as silk cake flour by Pillsbury and the ingredients listed are: WHEAT FLOUR BLEACHED, NIACIN, IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID. Not knowing how much baking powder and salt are added to that flour, it’s hard to say what it would do to the recipe.
Like it says in the beginning – perfect vanilla cupcakes. I already made it several times. Cupcakes always yummy and I use Unbleached, All-purpose flour. I tried both, regular and mini, sizes. And the frosting is to die for. Whoever tried it – loved it: american, bulgarian, russian. Especially kids. Thank you so much, Natasha. I couldn’t find good vanilla cupcakes recipe and now I have it. 🙂
love it.
Yes!! I love a good review 😉 Thanks Yelena and I’m so happy you love the recipe!
Kind of upset. I followed the recipe exactly. Mine didn’t seem to cook within 12-14 it was more like 18 and then they turned too dark. I doubled the recipe and I ended up with 35 cupcakes. It took soooo long for the top/middle to cook, I think I ruined like 5 cupcakes just checking the middles! & When a toothpick came out clean the cupcake was still wasn’t even done! I don’t think I’ll use this recipe again :/ I swear I did everything exactly as you did. I have like 30 almost burnt half raw cupcakes with a big thing of homemade icing. Not at all impressed. Like only the outside of mine cooked.
It’s so hard to say without being there to see what was done differently. Did you by chance use extra large muffin tins? I’ve made these at least a dozen times and they turn out perfect every time. Its very strange that the middles didn’t cook. Were you baking at the temp stated in the recipe?
hi this is nickel sorry about the other comment that was my friend. i hope my friend did nothing wrong. again i would like to apologize what she did was wrong. and for the record i loved your cupcakes. btw she is not bipolar. happy new year 🙂
No worries :). It was a little peculiar and I’m glad you left a follow-up comment ;).
Great recipe!!
Tnx!!
You’re welcome! 🙂
What do think about adding 50-100 grams of milk chocolate?
I haven’t experimented with. Go plate before in these. My go to chocolate cupcakes recipe is the one for Prague chocolate cupcakes on my blog. Have you tried them? You can use the vanilla frosting and they are delicious!
I haven’t tried them, but I will…
Tnx again 🙂
I hope you love them! 🙂
hey me and my 2 best friends tried to make them it was amazing we did it for our project
How fun!! Did you post pictures of them somewhere online?
Awesome recipe! This will actually be the main recipe for my upcoming cupcake business!
I have a prob though. While yours are almost perfectly round after baking, my cupcakes’ top “breaks” and they look more like volcanoes. What could have gone wrong? They still look awesome though. They look more like muffins now.
Do you mean they cracked on top? Hmmm…. what kind of flour were you using?
Yes, they cracked on top; but they still look good as if they’re intentional. I guess it also had something to do with the fact that i both have the top and the bottom heating coil of the oven turned on (as opposed to just the bottom, i guess?).
Oh, and one last question: i actually forgot to add baking soda; but they still turned out well. What is the purpose of the baking soda,exactly? Thanks!
..woops.nevermind,i figured it out regarding the cracking thing. it was indeed because of the top heating rod/coil being turned on whereas it should be only the bottom. 🙂
..looking forward to more awesome recipes! 🙂
I think my coils go on at the same time: top/bottom. I didn’t even know you could change those settings ;). It might also have been because the baking soda was omitted. I’m not sure exactly though…
Awesome! Did you put them in the fridge when you frosted them the night before? Or just leave them out?
I refrigerated since there is dairy in the frosting 🙂
Natasha, have you ever made the cupcakes the night before and adding the icing the next day? You think they would still taste soft? I would keep them covered. Thanks!
I have and I’ve also frosted them the night before and they were fine the next day. 🙂
Hi! I just made these yesterday and they were very delicious. I was just wondering why it didn’t look as pretty as yours did. Mine had a lot of air bubbles. Is there any technique that I missed with mixing the batter?
I forgot to mention that mine cooked for 20 mins instead of 12-14mins.
That’s a pretty big difference. Did you use a standard sized cupcake pan?
Yes, I did. My cupcake liners were those 3oz. ones.
What kind of flour did you use? That could make a difference. Also did your batter look the same as mine? Maybe you overbeat it? Most likely it’s the type of flour used.
I used cake flour for mine. My batter was thin also but there were a lot of lumps from the flour.
What kind of flour did you use? It should not have been lumpy. It actually sounds like it wasn’t mixed well enough if there were lumps of flour.
Natasha, these cupcakes are absolutely incredible!! I made them a couple of nights ago (I also used your vanilla frosting recipe – I have one word for the frosting: YUM!!!!!) and my whole family absolutely loved them! My mom is not a big cupcake person, but she even loved them!
I also took some to work, and I got so many compliments on them. One of my co-workers said that these were the best cupcakes by a non-professional baker that she has tried. That totally made my day and I can’t take full credit for it so I wanted to share this comment with you!! Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe with us!! 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing that with me. You’re so sweet. I’m so glad you loved the cupcakes 🙂
Hi Natasha! wanted to thank you for this amazingly simple recipe as I need to make around 200 of them! My question is, if I triple the recipe, would the results be exactly the same as making each batch separately? Also, if I’m using all-purpose flour rather than cake or Canadian flour, do i need to add more or less of it for this recipe? Thanks a bunch!
Jamie,
I didn’t have Canadian flour either, and I used cake flour. Trust me, cake flour is the way to go! I used the same measurements Natasha had provided and these babies turned out amazing!!
I tripled this recipe and made cupcakes for my son’s first birthday. They didn’t quite make 45 (more like 42). But they were awesome! I used ground vanilla beans (3/4tsp in the tripled recipe) instead of liquid. After I started baking the vanilla ones I put two tablespoons of good dark cocoa powder in and made chocolate ones. They were also delicious.
What a great idea to put chocolate in and make them into chocolate cupcakes! Thank you so much for sharing.
Hi,
I’ve made these cupcakes for 2 baby showers and 2 birthdays. Regular and mini size. Really enjoyed them each time!!
Question: My daughter requested rainbow cupcakes for her rainbow dash -my little pony 5th birthday party. Have you ever made rainbow colors? The batter is pretty runny would the colors stay separated? You know what I mean? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. I will use Wilton gel food coloring.
Let me know, keep up the great recipies.
To be honest, I have not experimented with rainbow cupcakes or rainbow cake for that matter. I wish I had some great advice for you. But I am just not sure. If I do test that out, I will let you know. If you beat me to it, please let me know how it works out 😉
Just made these and I love them!!! I used a chocolate frosting but they were delicious plain!!!
I’m so happy you liked them 🙂
I made a batch of these today, and they were a HUGE hit. Delicious, fluffy and moist, but still able to hold up to a dense frosting. Everyone wanted more and family members are already asking me for the recipe! Thanks so much for posting this!
I followed the recipe exactly as written. You can use all purpose flour in a pinch, but it will significantly alter the texture of the cupcakes.
Thanks Masha!! 🙂 I’m so glad you all enjoyed the cupcakes!!
Greetings, I made these cupcakes yesterday with my daughter and nephews and they were delicious!! It’s so .hard to try and find delicious cupcake recipes but you creativea winner. They were a hit at my dinner table! #yummy
That’s awesome!! I’m so glad you enjoyed the cupcakes 🙂