These vanilla cupcakes are so easy to make, simply mix all of the ingredients together and bake. They’re perfect for birthdays, cake sales, tea with your friends and any other celebration you can think of.
I mentioned when I shared my recipe for caramel cupcakes a couple of weeks ago that I’m working on creating a mix-and-match cupcake index with all my sponges, buttercreams and fillings in one place so you can create your own cupcakes using any combination you can think of. However, when I made a start on it I realised that two of my go-to cupcakes recipes (vanilla and chocolate) didn’t exist on here in cupcake form (they’re only on here as larger birthday cake recipes). Whilst it’s really easy to convert these particular recipes from large cakes, to save you the trouble of working out what to adjust I decided that I’d publish them as cupcakes too.
Have you ever cooked someone else’s recipe for them to eat, or vice versa? How did it go?
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Easy Vanilla Cupcakes
INGREDIENTS
- 165 g self-raising flour
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- 3 medium eggs
- 165 g soft margarine
- 165 g caster sugar
- A few drops of vanilla extract
- 1½ tsp milk
Extras
- 12 cupcake cases
RECIPE VIDEO
INSTRUCTIONS
- Pre-heat your oven to 160ºC/140ºC fan.
- Place your cupcake cases into a muffin tin.
- Sift the self-raising flour (165g) and baking powder (1½ tsp) into a large bowl. Add the remaining ingredients (3 medium eggs, 165g soft margarine, 165g caster sugar, a few drops of vanilla extract and 1½ tsp milk) and mix until fully combined (either by hand or using an electric mixer on a low speed).
- Divide the mixture equally between the muffin cases (I use a cupcake scoop to help split it evenly).
- Bake for 18-20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave the cupcakes to cool in their tins for about 10 minutes and then move them to a wire rack to cool fully before decorating.
NOTES
NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.
Free From/Suitable For…
The ingredients I used to make this recipe are all free from the following allergens. However, please check any labels carefully for allergens you need to avoid as brands can vary and product recipes can change over time.
- Suitable for Vegetarians
- Tree Nut-Free
- Peanut-Free
- Sesame-Free
- Soya-Free
- Sulphur Dioxide & Sulphite-Free
- Lupin-Free
I’m sharing this recipe with the following blog challenge… #CookBlogShare with Easy Peasy Foodie.
Lucy Corrin says
These are amazing. However I’m not a fan of marg, what butter could it use as a sub? Salted or not?
Also the dreaded dome…it’s like a mountain! Any pointers on what to try to get it level?
Thank you! Great website for a first time baker!
Charlotte Oates says
Butter is fine. I’d use unsalted. Make sure you allow it to soften at room temperature so it’s easy to mix into the other ingredients.
I’m surprised your getting doming as I tend to find mine are always pretty flat. Some things that I know can cause more of a dome are:
* Temperature too high in the oven.
* Too much flour added to the cake mixture.
* Using larger eggs than the recipe suggests.
Kerrie says
Great recipe. Have used several times and everyone always compliments my cupcakes. Will try out the chocolate recipe next! Thanks!
Gina says
I’d like to make these with dark chocolate chips. How many grams of chips would you suggest for one batch?
Charlotte Oates says
I would really recommend adding chocolate chips to this sponge as it’s quite light so you tend to find the sink to the bottom.
Mary says
Hi, can I use oil instead of margarine/ butter?
Thank you!
Charlotte Oates says
I wouldn’t in this recipe. Oil has more moisture than butter/margarine and so you’ll end up with cupcakes that are claggy. It might also effect the rise.
Ellie says
Hello, do you have a recipe to make 24 Cupcakes?
Charlotte Oates says
Just double up the quantities listed here.
Stacey Hurt says
Hi, I love this recipe and have used it plenty of times recently. However I would like to use it to make a giant cupcake. I’m not sure on how to adjust the recipe to suit?
Charlotte Oates says
Unfortunately I’ve not tried this recipe as a giant cupcake so I’m not sure of the adjustments – sorry.
Ginny says
Hi, I have just found your website and the recipes look great I will be making the birthday chocolate cake next weekend and plan to do these yummy looking cakes also however I’m not a fan of margarine I presume unsalted butter will be fine and it should be softened also. Can’t wait to try them x
Charlotte Oates says
Yes, butter will be fine. It needs to be soft so leave it out of the fridge for an hour or so before you make the cake. If it’s too hard it won’t mix in properly and you may find your cake ends up greasy.
joanne says
awesome recipe …changed the margarine for Nuttalex and used Oat milk so Dairy free for Grandson !
Sophia Brown says
Amazing recipes!! After a failed batch of caramel cupcakes – tasted good but split over the cases – I persisted careful not to overfill next time around. (I bought a metal ice-cream scoop (what you call a cookie scoop) from $2 shop – This is the keyword perfect measuring !!) I made another batch (also using your caramel recipe) plus a batch of vanilla cupcakes. Just made delicious buttercream too. Both have turned out brilliantly and more to the point, taste delicious. I got about a tray and a half for patty cakes which I guess would be 12 muffins. Thanks Charlotte.
Suzanne Broy says
Loved the recipe but mine always seem to spill out the top of the cupcake cases – is this just a case of having put too much mixture in or is it a temperature issue?
Charlotte Oates says
It sounds like there’s too much mixture for the cases, they should be about 2/3 full. What type of cases do you use. I usually use muffin cases which are a little larger for my cupcakes.
Nicola says
Hi ,
What is the best margarine to use when making cupcakes ?
Thank you !
Charlotte Oates says
I usually use Stork
Karen Bendall says
Hi Charlotte
I love your recipes and have baked them many times. Could you tell me how much ingredients I would need to bake 36 cup cakes ? Do I just need to times the ingredients for the 12 by 3?
Many thanks
Karen
Charlotte Oates says
Yes, that’s exactly what you’d need to do.
Karen Bendall says
Thank you
Carolann says
Hi I would just like to say how amazing your recipes are. I am new to cake baking and I have tried some recipes until I found yours I will only now follow your recipes. so thank you for sharing and also the calculator is fab thank you Charlotte.
Paula Roberts says
Hi Charlotte- this recipe is really lovely! I saw that someone asked a question about freezing and why they came away from the cases – did you have any luck with that? I have a lot to make over the next couple of days and ideally would like to freeze a couple of batches just to keep up! Thank you! Paula
Charlotte Oates says
Hi Paula, I haven’t had a chance to test that out yet. I’ll pop it to the top of my to do-do list but I probably won’t have it done before you need to freeze them. Sorry.
Paula Roberts says
No problem! I’ll try it and let you know 🙂
Kat says
Hi you said 140 for fan isn’t that low my oven is fan and I’m not sure what temperature to do
Charlotte Oates says
140C for a fan oven or 160C for a conventional oven. If you’re using F then it’s 280F fan or 320F conventional.
Kate - gluten free alchemist says
Beautiful Cupcakes Charlotte! I wish I could pipe icing like that! x
Charlotte Oates says
Thanks Kate, it’s one of only two styles I can do, although I’ve just been given some new nozzles so I’m looking forward to branching out.
Celia Yates says
The cupcakes look scrummy.what are the best paper cases mine seem to come away from the cupcakes if I freeze. Any ideas anybody.your buttercream looks great.will be doing some at the weekend.
Charlotte Oates says
I’m not too sure but I’ll ask on my Facebook page and Twitter and see if anyone has any suggestions.
Rachel Smith says
These look so tasty but simple. Going to try this recipe with my daughter over the half term xx
Valentina | The Baking Fairy says
These are so beautiful! Everyone needs a go-to vanilla cupcake and vanilla frosting recipe, and this is totally a winner!
Charlotte Oates says
I completely agree, they’re probably the cakes I make the most as they’re always popular at cake sales.
Vicki Montague says
I love your piping skills…these look amazing. I would be terrified if someone cooked my recipe in front of me! I’m always scared when I publish a post that someone will come back saying it doesn’t work or was horrible. Thankfully, it’s only happened once in four and a half years and that was on one of my most popular recipes so that can’t be bad ;)!
Charlotte Oates says
It’s happened to me a couple of times but as with yours on a recipe that I’ve also had loads of great feedback on. It’s quite helpful sometimes as I have found that by getting to the bottom of why it didn’t work I learn more and more about cooking and I’ll go back and add extra tips into my recipes to hopefully help others.
Eb Gargano / easypeasyfoodie.com says
Such pretty cupcakes – I can never get over how neat and even yours are – you have clearly got it down to a fine art! I sometimes get my husband to make my recipes. It’s really useful as he is a very different cook from me (he is not very confident, follows the recipe exactly, chops everything up first and tidies up as he goes along – I am the complete opposite of this!) It is really interesting to see how something I thought was really obvious, is really not – it helps me make my recipes better as I think about how he would interpret what I have written. Thanks for linking your gorgeous cupcakes up to #CookBlogShare 🙂 Eb x
Charlotte Oates says
I’m very well practiced in two piping styles, I really want to learn some more. I think if I wanted for Jon to test out my recipes I wouldn’t get anything published as he’s always really busy.