Stories/Recipes
Fluffy Vanilla Cupcake Recipe
Butter, milk and vanilla. Twelve cupcakes with a soft crumb.
A fluffy vanilla cupcake is mostly butter, sugar, egg and milk, with enough flour to hold it. This batch makes 12. The ordered version is our vanilla vanilla cupcake, sold in threes.
Method
Heat the oven to 170°C fan. Beat 125g soft butter with 150g caster sugar until it looks pale. Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Fold in 160g self-raising flour and 2 tablespoons of milk. Spoon into cases, about two-thirds full. Bake 15–17 minutes. Cool before icing.
For the frosting, beat 125g soft butter with 200g icing sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 tablespoon of milk. It should be soft enough to pipe and firm enough to sit.
Why home batches sink
Opening the oven in the first 10 minutes drops them. So does a tin that is too full. If the crumb is dry, the oven was hot or they stayed in too long. The skewer test is more reliable than the clock.