Recipe: Simple Vanilla Cupcakes

After years, I decided to start baking again with these easy and simple cupcakes, recipe from BBC. You can even decorate them with a swirl of delicious buttercream frosting.

Start the baking by preheating the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale. Beat in the eggs a little at a time and stir in the vanilla extract. Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon, adding a little milk until the mixture is of a dropping consistency. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.

Next, bake them in the preheated oven and see them rise for you.

Rising...

And keep rising...

Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

For the buttercream icing, beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Then add the remaining icing sugar with one tablespoon of the milk, adding more milk if necessary, until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Add the food colouring and mix until well combined. Spoon the icing into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe the icing using a spiralling motion onto the cup cakes in a large swirl.

Now, serve the cupcakes with coffee or tea. Bon appétit!

Here's the recipe for the vanilla cupcakes (makes 12).
  110g/4oz butter or margarine, softened at room temperature  110g/4oz caster sugar
  2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
  1 tsp vanilla extract
  110g/4oz self-raising flour
  1-2 tbsp milk

In fact, I replaced the self-raising flour with these:

  110g/4oz all-purpose flour or cake flour

  1 1/2 tsp baking powder

  1/2 tsp salt

For the buttercream icing recipe:
  140g/5oz butter, softened  280g/10oz icing sugar  1-2 tbsp milk  A few drops food colouring

Overall, it is easy to prepare, the texture is soft and moist, and it smells really great, However, it is rather too sweet for me. I will definitely make it again, but I will cut down about 20% of the sugar, from 110g to 90g. Happy Baking!