I’m a big believer in pleasantly reliable, hard-to-mess-up recipes. It took years of experimenting to find a cupcake recipe that always results in fluffy, perfectly formed cakes, but I finally found it. (Why do so many recipes result in chewy textured, sunken monstrosities?) I’ve tried baking this recipe in temperamental ovens, been a little sloppy with my measurements, and without fail it always delivers beautiful vanilla cupcakes. Enjoy!

Prep time: 15-20 mins // Bake time: 18-20 mins

Ingredients:

8 oz plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon fine salt

2 large eggs

5 oz sugar

8 oz butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (you can skip this if you don’t have any vanilla)

3-4 fluidic oz milk (start with 3, add another if the mixture seems too stiff to spoon into the cupcake cases)

Your favourite icing for the topping

Method: 

Preheat your oven to 350 F/180 C, and line a muffin tray with cupcake liners. Melt the butter in a saucepan and set aside.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. In a different bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar for about 2 minutes until light and foamy. Then, still stirring, pour in the melted butter and the vanilla.

Add half of the flour mixture to the egg mixture, stirring all the while, and then add the milk followed by the rest of the flour mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases; it should be a pretty solid mixture (i.e. it doesn’t drip off the spoon when you hold it up), but easily malleable. Bake in the centre of the oven for 18-20 mins, rotating the tray about half way through the baking time for a more even bake (if you remember: I usually don’t!).

Allow the cupcakes to cool before you add the icing. If you want a classic pretty pale pink colour, adding a tiny bit of ground beetroot or a couple of raspberries does the trick nicely!