(cheerful music)
- Hey everybody, it's Natasha, Natashaskitchen.com.
And today I'm gonna teach you
how to make perfect vanilla cupcakes.
These are so much better than store bought,
the texture is incredible.
And this is the only recipe
you'll need for vanilla cupcakes.
Wait 'til you try the frosting, it's so good.
(laughs) So let's get started!
(wood slapping)
(bell rings)
First we'll combine the dry ingredients.
In a medium mixing bowl, add 1 1/4 cups
of all-purpose flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder,
and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt.
Whisk those together and set that aside.
In another large mixing bowl,
or you could use the bowl of your stand mixer,
combine 1/2 a cup of softened unsalted butter
with 3/4 cup of granulated sugar.
Use an electric mixer to beat those together
on medium-high speed for about five minutes,
or until the mixture is thick and fluffy.
Next, add two large room temperature eggs,
adding them one at a time
and beating well with each addition.
(motor whirring)
And make sure to scrape down the bowl with a spatula
as needed so your mixture is smooth and well combined.
Once the eggs are well blended,
add two teaspoons of real vanilla extract.
We do have a tutorial for making your own vanilla extract,
it's just two ingredients, so easy,
and it will make your baking taste amazing.
I'll leave a link to this in the notes.
Reduce the mixer to medium speed
and add your flour in thirds,
alternating with your one 1/2 cup
of room temperature buttermilk.
Make sure to beat well with each addition
so that the flour and buttermilk are well incorporated
before adding more.
Alternating the flour and buttermilk like this
will help keep the mixture smooth.
It's also really important to use room temperature
ingredients to keep the butter from hardening.
(cheerful upbeat music)
Also, I do have my oven preheating right now
at 350 degrees fahrenheit
with the rack in the center of the oven.
Once all of the flour and buttermilk are in,
scrape down the sides of the bowl
just to make sure everything is really well incorporated.
Then beat until the batter is smooth.
(motor whirring)
The batter will be really thick,
which makes it easy to portion into cupcake tins.
And it's okay if it looks slightly grainy.
This recipe makes 12 perfect vanilla cupcakes,
so line a 12-count muffin tin with paper liners.
Using a trigger-release ice cream scoop
makes portioning these much easier.
Pour the batter evenly into 12 lined muffin tins,
filling them about 2/3 full.
Make sure you don't overfill,
and you should have exactly enough batter for 12 cupcakes.
Transfer that to the center of a preheated oven
and bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit
for about 20 to 23 minutes,
or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Once those are out of the oven,
let them cool for five minutes in the pan,
then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely
before adding the frosting.
Now I'm gonna show you how to make our go-to
all-time favorite cupcake frosting.
Pour 1 1/2 cups of cold heavy whipping cream
into a large mixing bowl.
Beat that on high speed for about 1 1/2 to two minutes,
or until the cream is whipped, fluffy, and spreadable.
In a second large mixing bowl,
beat together one eight ounce package
of softened cream cheese and two cups of powdered sugar.
Start that on low speed, unless you wanna be standing
in a cloud of powdered sugar,
then increase the speed to medium-high.
Beat that for about two minutes,
scraping down the bowl as needed.
You want this mixture to be really light and creamy.
Next, blend in one teaspoon of vanilla extract.
(motor whirring)
To finish off the frosting, fold your whipped cream
into the cream cheese mixture.
Use a spatula to fold gently
until the frosting is well combined.
Fold until your frosting is even in color and texture.
Transfer the frosting to a pastry bag
fitted with a piping tip.
I'm using a Wilton 1M, and I will link to all the tools
we used to make these cupcakes in the recipe notes.
If you wrap the bag around your hand like this,
it'll keep the edges clean and make it much easier to pipe.
Now that our frosting is ready
and our cupcakes are completely at room temperature,
we're ready to frost them.
You never wanna frost a warm cupcake
or the frosting will melt.
And, good news, you can make these cupcakes and the frosting
ahead of time because they both keep really well.
You can also frost them and refrigerate them
fully assembled, which makes it a great make-ahead dessert.
All right, these are ready to be enjoyed,
but we're gonna add a little bit of sprinkles
because sprinkles make everything more fun.
And we are gonna do a taste test.
And I piped these a little big,
so now I'm a little bit scared.
(laughing) Who dares me to do a taste test?
Oh, more sprinkles, more sprinkles.
The kids can't resist these with sprinkles,
and me, I love the sprinkles.
(laughing)
So fun, okay.
All right, hoo!
It's big.
(laughing)
This might get ugly, that's okay.
Worth it.
These cupcakes are really good.
Oh, yum, yum, yum.
And these turn out to be the perfect color.
They stay together when you take off the wrapper,
which is important, because they're easy to eat.
And look at that, this is beautiful.
(giggles)
'Kay, here I go.
(exhales) I'm delaying the inevitable.
I'm ready.
(laughing) Here we go.
(laughing)
How am I supposed, okay.
(giggling)
Mm.
Mm!
You guys gotta get in and see this texture.
These are just airy, soft, melt-in-your-mouth delicious.
I mean, I can hardly describe this texture,
it's just so, so fluffy, it is perfect.
This is the only cupcake recipe you'll need.
We've made these countless times, they are so good.
They always disappear fast.
And this frosting, it's super easy.
And it is just like marshmallow soft,
whipped, fluffy, airy, lightly sweet.
Perfectly sweet, I should say.
And this one's telling me to eat the rest of it, so.
(laughing)
But oh, oh!
Another way, my husband's tip for eating a cupcake
is he likes to take off the bottom.
You can also cut it off for a prettier look.
And then just like sandwich it, (laughing)
for a cupcake sandwich.
Because this is supposedly easier to eat, I don't know.
Let's see.
Let's see what happens.
Oh, you want it.
Oh, okay.
Well, there goes my cupcake.
(laughing)
All right, I'm gonna tell my kids about these,
because they love cupcakes.
I hope you try these,
they are sure to become a new favorite.
And we'll see you in our next video.