I’ve tried a slew of vanilla cupcake recipes and usually end up with a bland, dense cake. So when I came across this recipe for “Almost Cake Mix Vanilla Cupcakes, I was skeptical. But I am happy to report the name is right on! Not only are these cupcakes delicious, they are moist and light as well. And of course, I used my favorite buttercream frosting [1] recipe.
Ingredients
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup Crisco shortening, room temperature
2 cups sugar, ground in the processor until fine (measure before processing)
4 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon almond extract or lemon extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups cake flour or all-purpose flour (or combined together)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup warm half-and-half cream or full-fat milk (this is important, warm the milk!)
Preparation
- Set oven to 375 degrees (will reduce oven temperature just before baking cupcakes).
- Line 24 muffin pans with paper cupcake liners.
- In an electric mixer, cream butter and shortening until fluffy.
- Add in the eggs (one at a time) and the extracts and beat about 3-4 minutes on high speed (the mixture will seem to be a bit lumpy but will even out when you add in the sugar).
- Add in the sugar; beat well (another 3 minutes) until sugar is COMPLETELY combined.
- In a bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder.
- Blend into the creamed ingredients, along with the warm milk until smooth (about 3 minutes).
- Fill the prepared pans about two-thirds full.
- IMMEDIATELY, reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.
- Place the cupcakes in oven, and bake for about 20-24 minutes, or until the cupcakes test done.
Makes 24 cupcakes.
Notes:
- I used ultrafine sugar.
- I used cake flour.
- I used whole mik.
- I used lemon extract.
- After adding the eggs to the butter, the batter is very lumpy and kinda funky looking.
- The cupcakes were done after 18 minutes, so you may want to check them early.
- I usually get 30 (very nicely sized) cupcakes, not 24 like the recipe states.
Recipe from Recipe*Zaar [2].