These Vanilla Cupcakes are moist and fluffy with creamy vanilla pastry Cream Centres, topped with silky vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.
I always say never underestimate the power of a good vanilla dessert. These Cupcakes are so delicious they will melt in your mouth.
Shall we say the base to most desserts is Vanilla? When perfecting a line of specific desserts, we usually start with vanilla. Same with cakes, pastry creams, cookies, sweets, puddings, pies, tarts, and bread.
In its natural, unprocessed form, vanilla is honestly the best flavour there is. It is simple yet so impressive and deliciously satisfying.
I have made Vanilla Cupcakes almost a million times. Making Cupcakes is fun but sometimes devastating. Yeah, they are small, manageable, and beautiful but it’s always so disappointing when the oven dings only to open to Sunken cupcakes.
I have opened my oven to sunken cupcakes a couple of times. But hey, that’s okay. It’s perfectly normal. Through experience and practice, I was able to perfect my cupcake recipe, along with some tips and tricks that I have adopted. The secret is understanding the science behind mixing techniques and the role of each and every ingredient.
How to make vanilla cream filled cupcakes.
Make the vanilla pastry cream.
Pastry cream is made with milk, heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch then flavoured with vanilla.
Start by mixing egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl until the sugar dissolves. Afterwards, drizzle in warm milk infused with vanilla.
Whisk continously to avoid cooking the eggs. Afterwards, transfer this mixture into a medium pot and cook on low heat until thick. Remove from heat and pass it through a wire mesh to make it smooth. Cover with a cling film and refrigerate until ready for use. Read more about vanilla pastry cream here.
Make the cupcakes.
- Preheat the oven to 160C and fill the cupcake tins with cupcake liners. Preheating takes 15 to 20 minutes.
Leavenings such as baking soda and baking powder need heat to react effectively. Therefore, not preheating the oven can result in sunken cupcakes.
Preheating also improves the flavour of cupcakes due to the browning effect.
- In a small bowl, sift cake flour and mix with the dry ingredients.
Sifting makes flour lighter, making it easier to combine with other ingredients. Baking with unsifted flour can lead to clumps of unmixed flour in the cupcake batter which will be later translated into the cupcake after they bake, bleh!
- In a separate bowl, cream room temperature butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
This takes about 2 minutes with a hand mixer set on medium speed. Add oil and vanilla extract and mix to combine. Afterwards, add eggs one at a time, mixing to at every turn.
- Fold the flour mixture with the egg mixture alternating with buttermilk.
Be careful not to overmix at this point. This is because when flour gets in contact with water, the protein glutenin is activated. The more you mix the flour the more gluten is developed. Overdeveloped gluten will lead to tough and chewy cupcakes.
- Bake until a wooden skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Scroll down for the ingredients measurements.
Make vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.
Swiss meringue buttercream is luscious and fluffy not to mention less sweet compared to american buttercream. Learn how to make this frosting here.
Assembly
On cooled cupcakes make small holes with a cupcake plunger or a nozzle underside. Fill with the vanilla pastry cream and frost with swiss meringue buttercream.
Experiment with other frosting such as cream cheese as in red velvet or chocolate as in boston cream cakes.
Tips for making the best vanilla cupcakes.
Don’t over-mix your batter. If you overmix the batter, you will end up incorporating too much air into the mixture. This will eventually collapse your cupcakes.
Overmixing will also overdevelop gluten. Too much gluten will result in tough and chewy cupcakes. To avoid overmixing, simply fold flour with the wet ingredients using a spatula until combined.
Use Cake Flour. Although all-purpose flour works just fine, cake flour has cornstarch which reduces the protein content of the overall flour. Therefore, it reduces the amount of gluten formed during mixing hence, resulting in a more tender and delicate texture.
Increase the flour amount when using cake flour, that is, for every 1 cup of all-purpose flour equals 1 1/8 Cake flour.
Don’t open the oven too early. Opening the oven door too early will lead to a rush of cold air into the oven creating temperature fluctuation hence collapsing the cupcakes
Don’t set the oven too high. Very high temperatures will make the cupcakes have an excessively domed, hard outer crust. This can be the desired effect for muffins but not cupcakes.
Allow the cupcakes to completely cool. If you frost the cupcakes when they are still warm, the frosting will likely melt. In addition, before storing cupcakes in a sealed container, ensure they have completely cooled to avoid sticky cupcakes.
Use Buttermilk. Buttermilk helps balance out the sugar in cupcakes. It also helps to reduce gluten formation hence resulting in a moist tender cake. Good alternatives are Sour cream and Plain Yoghurt.
Note that, when you are using buttermilk in a recipe, balance it out with a base; baking Soda.
Use good quality vanilla extract. If you cannot get access to vanilla pods, use high-quality vanilla extract. Most vanilla extracts are imitations and are just flavourings that mimic vanilla. When purchasing vanilla, read the product label. It should be ‘Vanilla extract’ NOT ‘Vanilla flavour’.
Don’t Overfill the Cupcakes Liners. Too much batter in the cupcake liners may leed to overflowing or sinking of cupcakes since there will be no room for expansion. Always fill cupcakes liners with 2/3 or 3/4 with batter.
The Best Vanilla Cupcakes.
Course: DessertDifficulty: Medium14
servings30
minutes30
minutesThese cupcake sare soft and spongy, filled with a creamy vanilla pastry cream and a vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.
Ingredients
280 grams cake flour
100 grams butter
160 grams granulated sugar
30 ml oil
3 eggs
Buttermilk 200 ml
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract.
Baking soda 1/4 tsp
- Vanilla pastry cream
300 ml milk
200 ml heavy cream
90 grams sugar
6 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla paste
30 grams cornstarch
Directions
- Vanilla cupcakes.
- Preheat oven to 160C and line a cupcake baking pan with paper cupcake liners. Set them aside.
- In a medium-sized bowl, sift flour and mix with baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set this aside.
- In a separate bowl, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Takes about 2 minutes using a hand mixer. Add in the vanilla paste and oil then mix to combine.
- Afterwards, add the eggs, one at a time, mixing at every turn. Switch to a hand spatula and fold in the flour with the egg mixture alternating with buttermilk. Be careful to overmix at this point as this will overdevelep gluten leading to chewy and tough cupcakes.
- Bake in the preheated oven at 160C for 20 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted.
- Afterwards, remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
- Vanilla pastry cream.
- In a small bowl, mix egg yolks, cornstarch and sugar until combined and set this aside.
- In a small pot over medium heat, heat milk and heavy cream and paste of one vanilla pod.Remove from heat, then gently drizzle the warm milk mixture to the egg mixture whisking continously.
- Transfer this mixture to the small pot and cook to a gentle boil. Stir frequently.
- Remove from heat and strain through a wire mesh. Cover with a cling film and referegerate until ready to use.
- Assembly.
- Take the cooled vanilla cupcakes and using a plunger or a nozzle make holes at the centre of each.
- Fill with the vanilla pastry cream. Afterwards frost with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.
Notes
- Use good quality vanilla extract. In the packaging description, it should be labeled ‘Vanilla extract’ NOT ‘Vanilla flavour’ .
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