November 10 is national vanilla cupcake day so let’s celebrate this classic treat with an easy and delicious recipe! This is actually my popular funfetti cake recipe but without sprinkles and more vanilla.
I’ve road tested just about every vegan recipe out there and they all came up short for me. They either didn’t have the right texture, or flavor and were just disappointing. I’ve been baking since I was a kid and I remembered a book I bought when it came out in the late 80s called “The Cake Bible” by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I made so many cakes (all in my pre-vegan days) from this book and I recalled she had an unusual method of incorporating ingredients and I went to my bookshelf to grab my well worn copy and started reading the recipes again. Yep, she had written about a revolutionary method of adding the fat to the dry ingredients FIRST before adding the liquid ingredients. It’s come to be known as the “reverse creaming” method and it guarantees a moist cake with an incredible texture. It’s a method used in commercial bakeries although they usually use vegetable shortening and not oil like I am in my recipe.
Why does reverse creaming work? Well, it coats the flour with fat preventing it from absorbing moisture and creating gluten resulting in a more tender lighter cake. The traditional method is to cream butter and sugar, add eggs then the dry ingredients usually alternating with milk. Using this method, you run the risk of over-beating the batter and creating a tough cake. Add the fact that we’re not using eggs because this is a vegan recipe (they add tenderness) then it’s difficult to make a really good cake with a fine crumb unless you’re an experienced baker and know just how much to mix the batter. With this method, you can’t over-mix the batter no matter how much you try!
Another amazing benefit of reverse creaming is that everything is mixed in one bowl. You really should use a stand or hand mixer for this but you could mix it by hand with a whisk. The dry ingredients are all blended together first to break up any lumps and then the oil is added with some vegan sour cream (for tenderness) and some of the vegan milk then mixed completely. Then you add the rest of the milk which we’re adding some lemon juice into for some lift from the acid and then vanilla annd some almond extracts. More about those after the photo jump.
Clear imitation vanilla will give these a more bakery cake flavor and it’s what I like to use in the frosting as I didn’t want it yellow. You can use a good vanilla or even vanilla paste although that will add flecks to the batter or frosting.
I tested these cupcakes made with vegetable shortening, vegan butter and oil and oil was the clear winner. It was the moistest of the options as it’s pure fat which excels in the reverse creaming method as opposed to vegan butter which contains some water. For the frosting however I prefer a mix of vegan butter and shortening as it creates the lightest most bakery-like flavor.
What else can I add to these?
- Sprinkles, chocolate chips and more!
- Try flavoring the frosting! Orange, lemon or strawberry would all be great.
- Fill the cupcakes! You could add preserves, chocolate or even peanut butter inside with a pastry bag before frosting. Yum!
I hope you enjoy these vanilla cupcakes for special occasions, parties or just on a Tuesday because you’re worth it!
Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes
12
servings30
minutes30
minutesDelicious and easy to make vegan vanilla cupcakes.
Ingredients
- Vanilla Cupcakes
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups vegan cane sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/4 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup plain vegetable oil
1/3 cup vegan sour cream
1 tablespoon good or clear imitation vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups vegan milk
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- Vanilla Frosting
1 cup vegan butter at room temperature
3/4 cup vegetable shortening
3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
1/8 teaspoon Kosher salt (this generally is called a “pinch”)
2 teaspoons clear imitation or good vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon vegan milk
Directions
- Vanilla Cupcakes
- Prepare your cupcake pans with paper liners or by buttering or spraying with vegetable oil spray and preheat the oven to 350°.
- Mix dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl using a hand mixer to combine and aerate for a minute. If mixing by hand, use a whisk. Add the oil, 1/3 cup vegan sour cream and 1/2 cup vegan milk and mix until combined on low speed. Scrape down bowl then continue to mix on medium speed for 1 minute.
- Mix the lemon juice into the remaining 1 cup milk and let it sit for a minute. Add the extracts and whisk to combine. Slowly add the remaining liquid to the mixture in the bowl on low speed then scrape the bowl down and mix for two minutes to combine. The great thing about this is because we use the reverse creaming method you can’t over-mix this and make the batter tough because we coated all the flour with fat.
- Evenly distribute the batter in the cupcake pans (you can fill them pretty full about 3/4 full) and bake for 27-30 minutes depending on your cupcake pan size but don’t over-bake. Cupcakes are done when a cake tester or tooth pick comes out clean. Let them cool completely before frosting.
- Vanilla Frosting
- In a bowl, mix the room temperature butter and shortening together with a hand or stand mixer until light and fluffy about 3 minutes scraping down as necessary.
- Sift the powdered sugar over the butter mixture (if you don’t sift, your frosting will be lumpy – I use a small fine mesh strainer) and add the remaining ingredients and mix until we’ll combined and fluffy about 2-3 minutes. You want it to be a light consistency so you may need more than one tablespoon of milk.
- You can frost them simply with a knife or make them fancy using a pastry bag and pipe the frosting any number of ways. Enjoy!
Notes
- Use your favorite vegan sour cream and milk.
- If you can’t find it don’t want to use artificial flavorings then use pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste.
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