These Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting are tasty, moist and perfect for any celebration. Every baking repertoire needs to have a good vanilla cupcake recipe in it because not everyone (including me) loves chocolate. A vanilla cupcake is the perfect base for any type of frosting. I made these for my niece’s baby shower and as she knows it is a girl I went with the pink theme. To make the frosting pink I used the sauce from my Roasted Strawberries. It made the frosting delicious and just the right shade of pink. If you don’t have any Roasted Strawberries handy a tablespoon of strawberry jam will do the trick or just mash up some fresh strawberries with a little sugar. It doesn’t take much to give that pretty pink hue and great flavour.
Cupcakes are the ideal dessert for parties where you are serving finger foods and snacks. Folks can sit or stand and eat a cupcake and not have to worry about fighting with a fork and plate. Plus cupcakes are just pretty little confections. I am not sure exactly what it is that makes cupcakes so appealing to us, maybe it is the fact that we get to eat the whole thing! A cupcake is the perfect package of cake and frosting- just enough to satisfy without having to decide on how big of a piece of cake to slice.
With the whole cupcake trend evolving there is now a endless variety of cupcake liner and sprinkles to choose from. This is the first time that I had baked with the stiff cardboard type cupcake forms. The upside of these is that the colour stays much brighter after baking. I have been very disappointed with pretty cupcake liners in the past as after baking they fade or just blend into the colour of the cupcake. The only downside of these cardboard forms is that it is more difficult to remove the cupcake to eat it – one has to peel the liner off so it definitely requires two hands to eat. But I will be using these cupcake forms again. Sprinkles -such a hard decision as to which ones to use to add that little finesse to the frosted masterpiece. I seem to have acquired such a collection of sprinkles that I think I could keep a whole town supplied with sprinkles for at least a year.
Thankfully Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting will be on my favourite list for years to come and hopefully yours too! Enjoy!
- Cupcakes
- 1½ cups granulated sugar
- 2½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- ½ cup full-fat sour cream
- ⅓ cup canola oil
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup milk
- Frosting:
- ½ cup butter, softened
- 4-5 cups powdered sugar
- 1-2 tbsp strawberry juice/jam
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2-4 tbsp cream/milk
- Preheat oven to 350 ℉. Line 2 muffin tins with cupcake liners or grease and flour well.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Mix on low speed until well combined.
- Add butter and mix on medium-low speed for three minutes. This will incorporate the butter into a fine crumble.
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined.
- Slowly add milk and mix on low speed until just combined.
- Fill cupcake liners just over ½ full.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes. They are done when a toothpick comes out clean. When the cupcakes are done, remove them immediately from the tins to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before frosting.
- Frosting:
- Beat butter and 2 cups of icing sugar together. It will first crumble then will come together smoothly.
- Beat in vanilla and strawberry juice/jam.
- Add 2 more cups of icing sugar and milk 1 tbsp at a time until you get the consistency you desire for spreading or piping.