Vanilla cupcakes recipe

There are days where all you crave is a plain vanilla cupcake. These cupcakes are easy to whip up and can be completed in an hour (baking and cleaning time included). I love basic recipes like this as you can always jazz the cupcakes up with frosting, chocolate chips or add in fruits like banana, apple, etc.

The cracks look like stars

My recipe comes from joyofbaking with some modifications. I have half-ed the amount of sugar used as I don't like my sweets to taste too sweet (ironic-sounding I know) and adjusted it to make 6 cupcakes using my cupcake liners (easily available at any specialty baking store like Phoon Huat). If you are using the cupcake tray with paper liners, I would think it would make about 9 cupcakes.

Makes 6 cupcakes

Ingredients
75g unsalted butter (room temperature)
40g white fine sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
130g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
40ml milk (I ran out of fresh milk so I used milk powder dissolved in hot water, ratio of 25g milk powder to 200ml of water. Cool to room temperature before using or place in freezer for 5 minutes before use)

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line cupcake tray with liners.

2. Place butter and sugar in large bowl and cream together using a hand mixer. Cream for 1 minute on speed 1 until pale and fluffy

3. Add in egg one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in vanilla essence and mix well.

4. Sift flour, salt, baking powder in another bowl and leave aside.

5. Alternate the addition of flour mix and milk into creamed butter-sugar. Do not over-beat. Use a spatula to mix till no flour traces can be seen.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 180 degrees. Check if cake is done at the 20 minute mark. Cupcakes are ready when a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.

Tips

You can add toppings like almond flakes or chocolate chips on top of cupcakes before baking. However, toppings shouldn't be too heavy as they will sink into the cupcakes when baking.

If you want chocolate cupcakes, substitute 10g of plain flour with 10g of cocoa powder. However, the resultant cupcakes will not have a strong chocolate flavour as opposed to using melted chocolate.

Nom nom nom - one gone (already?!)