Vanilla Cupcake Recipe
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 200 g Self Raising Flour (7oz)
- 200 g Room Temperature Butter or baking spread (7oz)
- 200 g Caster Sugar 7oz
- 2 Eggs (medium)
- 1 tbsp Vanilla Essence / Flavouring
- 2 tbsp Milk
Vanilla Buttercream
- 340 g Icing Sugar (12oz)
- 170 g Room Temperature Salted Butter (6oz)
- 1.5 tbsp Milk
- 1 tbsp Vanilla Favouring (or favouring of your choice)
Instructions
- To make the cupcakes, add all the ingredients into your mixing bowl at the same time. Then using an electric hand whisk or electric stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix the ingredients until they are fully combined, into a smooth, silky mixture (this usually takes around 30 seconds).
- Prepare a cupcakes / muffin tray with 12 paper cupcake cases and preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.When setting my oven I always use a normal oven setting. If you are using a fan oven you will need to reduce the temperature and bake for a little longer. With a fan oven you may find that the top of your cupcake bakes a little quicker than the inside.
- Split the mixture evenly into all 12 cupcake cases and bake them for around 22 to 24 minutes, until lightly golden on the top.
- Once they have a light golden colour on the outside, you can test they are baked on the inside by using a cocktail stick or bamboo skewer. Poke it into the center of your cupcakes; if it comes out clean, you know they are baked all the way through.
- You then want to let your cupcakes cool and remove them from your cupcake tray. They will then be ready to decorate.
- To make the buttercream: sift the icing sugar into your mixing bowl. Then add the room temperature butter (you want to make sure with buttercream you are using a real block of butter rather than a spread). Add in your flavouring and start your mixer. You can then add the milk to get the consistency you are looking for.
- Mix on a medium / high speed for around 5 minutes. You will see your buttercream start to turn really creamy. You can then add any colouring of your choice. Gel colours work well as you are not adding any liquid to your buttercream.
- You can then add your buttercream into your piping bag with a piping tip of your choice and pipe a pretty swirl on the top of your cupcakes. Click here to find examples of buttercream piping techniques.