Cupcakes
This easy cupcake recipe is so simple to make. Decorate with a swirl of delicious buttercream frosting. A perfect cupcakes recipe for kids to make on their own or with a little help. If you want to make a bigger batch of cupcakes, use our cake calculator to automatically calculate the quantities.
Ingredients
For the cupcakes
- 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
For the buttercream icing
- 140g/5oz butter, softened
- 280g/10oz icing sugar
- 1-2 tbsp milk
- a few drops food colouring
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cupcake 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 cupcake cases until they are half full.
Bake the cupcakes 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 5 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 cupcakes in a large swirl.
Recipe Tips
You can also bake these as fairy cakes. It will make 12 smaller cupcakes. You can customise the flavour of your cupcakes by substituting the grated zest of half a lemon or orange in place of the vanilla extract.
If you want your cupcakes to be perfectly flat on top, you first need to make sure you have added the right amount of cake batter to each case, for this recipe that’s half full. You can use ice cream scoops or measuring spoons to make sure the same amount of batter goes into each case.
The other factor is your oven temperature. High temperatures make cakes rise quickly and the top dome (and sometimes crack), but higher temperatures have the benefit of making the cake light, so it’s a balance. Tiny cakes are particularly vulnerable to this, so if you know your oven runs hot, then you should definitely err on the side of caution and lower the temperature. Generally lowering the oven temperature by 10C (to 170C/150C Fan/Gas 3½) is safe, though you will need to cook them for a little longer. Any lower and you could find your cakes are rather dense.