Ingredients
Full recipe + amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
Butter. Caster sugar. Super fine sugar. Eggs. Flour. Baking powder. Salt. Milk. Plain yogurt. Vanilla. Icing sugar / Powdered sugar.
How to make the best vanilla cupcakes
Can I make cupcakes ahead?
Cupcakes can be baked, allowed to cool and frozen for up to a month. They can also be baked a day in advance and decorated on the day of serving. Decorated cupcakes can be stored under a cake dome for up to 2 days at room temperature.
How do you keep cupcakes moist?
The introduction of fat or dairy into a cupcake recipe is what keeps it moist. Oil, butter, yogurt and buttermilk are all good ways to keep a cupcake recipe moist. I love yogurt-cakes as they are always moist and light and that’s why I prefer to use yogurt in many of my cake recipes.
Do you need vanilla extract for cupcakes?
Vanilla extract is often seen as a superior product and is more expensive than vanilla essence. Cook’s Illustrated recently did a taste test and found that vanilla essence often won the taste test when compared to extract in baked goods. I suppose that’s because the flavor of imitation vanilla is what we associate with birthday cake, vanilla milkshakes and ice cream. I think if you can find a good quality essence it should be fine used in baking. But when in doubt, stick with a scraped vanilla bean or extract.
Do I need to keep buttercream icing in the fridge?
If it’s not terribly hot outside, it’s best to keep buttercream at room temperature as the butter will firm up and make it unpleasant to eat and impossible to decorate a cake or cupcake with.. If the temperature is too hot, you can refrigerate the buttercream and allow to come to room temperature before serving/using to decorate.
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