Vanilla Cupcakes Recipe (with buttercream)

Preheat your oven 170C/325F/Gas 3. Sift your plain flour, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl. Then add the caster sugar and the butter. Mix with an electric mixer until it forms a sandy consistency.

Pour in half the milk and mix it until it’s all combined.

In a separate bowl or jug, add in the other half of your milk, your two eggs and vanilla essence then give it a beat until combined.

Add the wet mixture a little bit at a time to the dry mixture making sure you are mixing with your electric mixer in between.

Once all the wet ingredients are combined, keep mixing until it’s nice and smooth but be careful not to over mix.

Add your sponge mixture into the paper cases and put them in the oven for about 20-25 mintutes or until a skewer comes out clean and they are well risen with a light golden brown colour. Make sure you leave them in for the right amount of time as you don’t want your cupcakes to be over cooked or sink if you open the oven too soon.

Once they are done, take them out and leave them in the cupcake tray for a few minutes then take them out and place them on a wire rack to cool completely.

For the buttercream, beat your butter with an electric beater for about 5-7 minutes and the butter should be a little more pale in colour with more volume and air inside it.

Start mixing in your icing sugar but I would recommend doing this in a few stages and on a slow speed so you don’t get loads of icing sugar flying all over the kitchen.

Once all your icing sugar is incorporated, add in your drop of vanilla essence and milk to relax your buttercream and give it a more thin consistency.

Pipe your buttercream on top of your cupcakes any way you would like to. If you wanted to spoon the buttercream then I would recommend that you should half the ingredients for the buttercream so that you won’t end up with any left over.

Finally decorate if you wish with sprinkles, hundreds and thousands while the buttercream is still wet then let it all set then you can enjoy your vanilla cupcakes.