Vanilla Cupcakes

This is the best Vanilla Cupcake recipe, which includes buttermilk and sour cream.  This white cake recipe is dense, moist, and delicious, with a simple buttermilk icing.

My Hippie Chick daughter will choose vanilla over chocolate every time.  Leading me to believe that she was switched at birth.

She will even say things like, “This is too chocolatey,” as if there were such a thing.

I blame my husband.  Robb will buy vanilla bean ice cream 9 times out of 10.  The other 1 time will be chocolate chip, or starlight mint, which are nice, but sometimes I want chocolate with nuts and caramel and peanut butter and marshmallows and chunks of brownies.  That’s what I’m talking about.

Despite my outwardly bad attitude about this, I have to say that I love a good white cake.  {The key word being “good.”}  It’s a staple in our household.

Most cakes are too soft and airy and crumbly for my taste.  I hate it when I’m eating cake, and I feel like I just got some crumbs in my lungs, because I inhaled while the cake was near my face.

Give me something dense and fudgy.  Something you know you’re eating.  That’s my kind of cake.

I actually love this recipe, because it’s super easy.  You start with a boxed white cake mix, and then you improve on it by adding your own concoction of creamy milk fats.

Mmmm…  milk fat.

And can we just talk about the elephant in the room for a minute?  As in, why are these Vanilla Cupcakes pink?  Funny story.

Well, not that funny.  More like pathethically sad.

The thing is, I had this *brilliant* idea about making them into an  ombre cupcake.  Something elegantly beautiful, like this pink cake or this blue-green-ish cupcake.  And then, the red food coloring came out a little fast, and before I knew it, the top half of the cupcakes was a WAY darker shade of pink than the bottom half.

*sob* *sniff*

The idea is totally sound though.  You might have more luck if you try it yourself.

Or just color the whole cupcake.

Or don’t color it at all.  This cake is yum-tasty, colored or not.

One more word, this one about the totally boring-looking frosting.  I made this beautiful cream cheese frosting to pipe into beautiful tall swirls on the beautiful pink cupcakes, but I ended up scrapping it in favor of this simple buttermilk icing.  When I tasted the really delicious cream cheese frosting with the really delicious buttermilk and sour cream white cake, I was sad that the combination wasn’t mind blowing.  In fact, it wasn’t a very good combination at all.

Don’t ask me why.  I have no idea.

But this simple buttermilk icing was really delicious on the cupcakes, without distracting from the simple vanilla flavor.

The icing was the right decision, even if the red food coloring wasn’t.

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Vanilla Cupcakes

 

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Cook time

20 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

A dense and moist vanilla cupcake with buttermilk icing.

Recipe type: desserts

Serves: 22

Ingredients

• 1 box white cake mix
• ½ cup sour cream
• ½ cup + 1 T. buttermilk
• ½ cup milk
• 1 egg + 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• ½ cup shortening
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

1. In a small dish, combine sour cream, milk and ½ cup buttermilk, eggs, and yolks.
2. In large mixing bowl, place half the sour cream mixture with the cake mix, vanilla, and shortening. Mix well.
3. Add remaining sour cream mixture, and mix well.
4. Fill cupcakes ⅔ full, and bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes. (Batter should fill 22-24 cupcakes.)
5. For icing, combine powdered sugar and 1 T. buttermilk. Drizzle a small spoonful of icing over warm cupcakes, and let cool.

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best vanilla cupcake recipe

white cake recipe