Vanilla Cupcakes

Welcome to The Little Yellow Book!

The first recipe on The Little Yellow Book has to be vanilla cupcakes – it was the first cupcake that I ever made and is still a firm favourite today!

Ingredients (makes 12 cupcakes)

For the cupcakes

100g butter

100g caster sugar

100g self-raising flour

2 free range eggs 

1tsp vanilla extract 

For the buttercream

150g butter

350g icing sugar

2tbsp milk

½ tsp vanilla extract

Method

For the cupcakes

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a cupcake tray with 12 cupcake cases.
2. Cream together your butter and sugar until there are no lumps. You can use an electric mixer or, like me,  just a mixing bowl and wooden spoon. 
3. Sift half of the flour and add one egg and mix until combined. Repeat with the remaining flour and the second egg. 
4. Splash in your vanilla extract and mix until it is all combined and smells like vanilla! If the mixture is a bit stiff you can always loosen it with a bit of milk.
5. Spoon your mixture into your cupcake cases - I spooned in about 2 and a half teaspoons of cake mixture into each case.
6. Put your cupcakes in the oven for 15 minutes or until the cupcakes are golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.
7. Leave to cool and make your vanilla buttercream.
   
   

Admittedly, I used to just guess measurements for my buttercream and hope for the best... But thankfully I recently discovered Cupcake Jemma on Jamie Oliver’s ‘Food Tube’ and she makes the best buttercream, it looks amazing - and I can vouch that it tastes incredible too. Her method requires a mixer, but a trusty wooden spoon will work just fine.

For the buttercream

1. To make your vanilla buttercream you need to start by beating your butter in a bowl until it becomes pale and smooth.
2. In a separate bowl add the vanilla extract to the milk and mix together.
3. Sift half of your icing sugar into the butter bowl and mix together, adding half of the vanilla milk as you go along.
4. Add the remaining icing sugar and vanilla milk and mix until it has combined and is a nice pale white colour.
5. Using a teaspoon (or piping bag if you're feeling fancy), swirl your vanilla buttercream onto each cupcake - a heaped teaspoon of buttercream should be the perfect amount.

Now you’re free to decorate your cupcakes! To celebrate the start of my blog I ordered some personalised cake toppers from Label Amour to decorate my cakes, but you can use whatever you like: sprinkles, chocolate shavings, sugar flowers – anything! Adding a tiny amount of food colouring into the buttercream will also liven up any vanilla cupcake.

I hope you enjoy these vanilla cupcakes as much as I do – a simple recipe like this proves that baking does not have to be difficult, and even the easiest of recipes can look and taste really impressive!

I have added this link to #CookBlogShare with Supergolden Bakes