Simple Vanilla Cupcakes (with healthier option)

Looking for an easy homemade vanilla cupcake recipe that tastes delicious & is fluffy & never dry. Look no further. These Simple Vanilla Cupcakes are fluffy and moist (and can be made into healthy cupcakes with a few substitutions) & stay fresh for days.

A few other cupcake recipes you might enjoy include: Best Ever Carrot Cake Cupcakes, Honey and Cinnamon Iced Banana Cupcakes or Cookies and Cream Cupcakes.

Why This Simple Vanilla Cupcakes Recipe

There are a million and one vanilla cupcake recipes out there on the interwebs but here's why you can stop searching for recipes:

1. All-in recipe. You throw it all in the bowl, mix and bake. Practically fool-proof.
2. They're light and fluffy and delicious. Honestly the fluffiest cupcake recipe I've used and I have used A LOT over the years.
3. Vanilla cupcakes that still taste fresh two days later? Yep that's these.

They're so good a friend even asked me to make them for her wedding. I made 100 cupcakes in a day!

Recipe Ingredients

These simple vanilla cupcakes are pretty standard in their ingredients but have one surprise.

Bare with me, the first time I saw that it had orange juice in it I doubted it but now many many, many batches in, I know it might be the key to their success.

• Orange juice - Yep the secret ingredient. Don't worry, you can't taste the orange juice.
• Butter - Make sure it's the real stuff that comes wrapped in foil. Take it out of the fridge at least 30 mine before baking
• Sugar - You can use caster sugar (super fine), regular raw sugar or for a little bit of a healthier option - rapadura sugar.
• Flour - You can use regular flour or for a healthier version, wholemeal or spelt flour.
• Vanilla - You can't make vanilla cupcakes without vanilla. Go for extract (or scrape the inside of a vanilla bean) over vanilla essence & you can even make your own vanilla extract.

I know you should always have baking ingredients at room temperature but I really take notice for this recipe. As you're mixing it all at once, you don't want hard chunks of butter.

If you forgot to take it out in time you can grate it or rub it over the back of a sieve to soften.

How To Make Simple Vanilla Cupcakes

Step 1 - This really is the easiest recipe ever. All you do is throw all the ingredients in the bowl of a Thermomix or food processor and whiz it until it's nice and smooth.

Alternatively, you can use a stand or hand mixer. Just keep beating until the mixture is smooth and pale.

Step 2 - You may need to scape the sides down and whiz again.

Step 3 - Line a cupcake tin with liners.

Step 4 - Divide the batter between the liners. You want it to go about ⅔ of the way up for the perfect rise.

Step 5 - Bake at 180C fan-forced for 15-20 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Step 6 - Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

Note - they're actually delicious on their own. The last batch I made my kids ate like muffins without even icing them.

How To Ice Simple Vanilla Cupcakes

The best thing about these simple cupcakes is that they are incredibly flexible.

You can change up the icing for whatever you like.

Simple buttercream icing is my favourite for classic vanilla cupcakes. Don't have icing sugar? You can make your own icing sugar with just 2 ingredients in 60 seconds.

There are some flavouring ideas below the recipe.

Rich chocolate fudge icing is perfect if you want to make them a little fancier.

Recipe FAQs