Hello you,
Here I have the simplest vanilla cupcake recipe. It has 4 basic ingredients which all weigh the same. I have made a variety of cupcakes which were all OK but I wanted to master the classic vanilla cupcake. They are so light and fluffy - finished off with a beautiful swirl of vanilla buttercream.
VANILLA CUPCAKE INGREDIENTS
Makes 12 cupcakes
170g Unsalted Butter at room temperature
170g Caster sugar
170g Self raising flour
3 Medium eggs (they also weigh 170g)
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla extract
RECIPE
1 - Preheat the oven to 170c or gas mark 3. Put 12 cupcake cases in the tins.
2 - Put the butter (at room temperature) and caster sugar into the mixing bowl and whisk on a high speed until creamy and pale.
3 - Mix each egg in one at a time. Whisk for 3 minutes after adding all 3 eggs until light and fluffy. I always break my eggs into a separate bowl just to make sure the eggs are OK. This way you shouldn't ever get any shell in your cake mix!
4 - Mix one teaspoon of Vanilla extract into the cake mixture.
5 - Place all of the self raising flour into a sieve and put into the cake mix. Whisk the mixture for 4 minutes on high power.
6 - I use an ice cream scoop to put the mixture into the cases. All should be 3/4 full. Put into the preheated oven for 15/16 minutes until golden brown. Don't be afraid that they won't be done, these can be over done quite quickly!
VANILLA BUTTER-CREAM INGREDIENTS
150g salted butter at room tempurature
150g - 250g icing sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
RECIPE
1 - Whisk the butter on a high speed for 3-5 minutes until it changes from yellow to a pale colour. This will make it easier rather then trying to mix the icing sugar and butter at the same time.
2 - Add half of the 150g icing sugar and whisk on high speed with the butter. After this is all mixed add the other half of icing sugar. Doing this in two stages will stop you being surrounded by a cloud of icing sugar!
3 - Add 1 teaspoon of Vanilla extract to the buttercream and mix in.
(The reason I had 150g - 250g icing sugar is that sometimes you need a little extra to thicken up, or if you add other flavourings/syrups it needs less. So adding less means you can always add more.)
4 - You can either use a palette knife to spread the buttercream on top of the cupcakes but I prefer to use a piping bag. Use whichever nozzle you like - I am using an open star (Not too sure of the actual name) Place the buttercream into the piping bag. If the buttercream seems too slack put it into the fridge for 10 minutes to firm up.
5 - You can decorate the cupcakes however you wish. There are so many lovely glitters/sprinkles in the shops so decorate how you wish. I did a few different styles - I used pink and gold glitter, purple, pink and blue strands and chopped up chocolate.
** Temperatures vary on different ovens. I have just written what I find works for me. Please don't hesitate to ask me any questions**
Thank you for taking your time to read this, I hope this helps.
Nat xxx
.JPG)
