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Vanilla Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting

June 12, 2009

Vanilla Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

A celebration always calls for a little something sweet.  Or so, at least, I think.  Over Memorial Day weekend, Jeremy and I travelled up to the D.C. area to visit his brother and family.  My sister-in-law’s birthday was the night before we went up, so we wanted to do something for her birthday.  We decided that baking cupcakes would be fun; they have two boys who would naturally been keen on sugar, and who doesn’t like a cupcake?  I mulled over the various flavor possibilities before deciding that vanilla would be the way to go.  Vanilla is a universal pleasure.

Brightly colored and festive, these cupcakes are a a crowd pleaser.  They are deeply vanilla and very tender.  The frosting is rich, but the tang of the cream cheese helps balance the sugar.  To make these a little more special than the everyday vanilla cupcake, I made a rich, vanilla cream cheese frosting to top them.  These make a great basic cupcake to add to your arsenal.  While the frosting is certainly delicious with them, they are sweet enough to pair with a glaze, a fruit topping, or a different icing.  They really are perfect to take to your next event.

When making cupcakes, it’s very important to make sure you bring your butter and eggs to room temperature.  This allows them to incorporate into the dough as smoothly, without lumps from unmixed butter or stringy bits of raw egg.  This may seem a difficult request if you are in a hurry, but there are shortcuts!

To bring butter to room temperature quickly: Place the butter between two sheets of wax paper or parchment paper.  Using a rolling pin, roll the butter out until it is almost paper thin.  Set aside for five to ten minutes.

To bring eggs to room temperature quickly: Fill a bowl with very warm, but not hot water (about the temperature of bath water).  If the water is too hot, the eggs will cook, so don’t be over-zealous.  Drop the eggs into the bowl of water.  Let them sit for about five minutes.  When you reach into the water and the eggs and the water are about the same temperature– they shouldn’t feel markedly cool to the touch– they’re ready.

A note on the colored frosting: The SIL’s favorite team and alma mater is the University of Florida, so team color icing was great way to personalize these cupcakes.  First, I divided the frosting in half.  I used a scant 1/4 tsp of Wilton icing color pastes in royal blue and orange.  I beat the icing well until the color was fully combined.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Vanilla Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting

for the cupcakes

  • 3/4 C butter (1 1/2 sticks)
  • 1 1/2 C sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 1/2 C flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 C milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp lemon extract

for the frosting

  • 1/2 C butter (1 stick)
  • 8 oz cream cheese (1 block)
  • 3 C  confectioner’s sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350º.  Bring the butter and the eggs to room temperature before mixing.  In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together using a hand mixer.  Mix in the eggs one at a time.  Then, stir in all of the dry ingredients until just combined.  Slowly pour in the milk and the extracts while beating constantly.  Line two muffin tins with cupcake papers.  Fill 2/3 of each space with batter.  Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the cupcakes are lightly golden on top and a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean.  Remove the cupcakes from the tins to racks to cool.  Let the cupcakes cool completely before frosting.

While the cupcakes cool, make the frosting.  Using a hand mixer, cream together the butter, the cream cheese, the confectioner’s sugar, and the vanilla extract.  Add sugar to bring frosting to the appropriate consistency.  Likewise, if the frosting is too stiff, a splash of milk can be mixed in to thin it.

To apply the frosting, use a decorator’s bag to pipe on the frosting.  Make sure you don’t overfill the bag.  Half a cup is about all that should go in.  If you use a measuring cup to fill the bag, and you cuff it over your hand while you fill it, refilling isn’t much trouble.  Plus, it will keep your icing from oozing out the top of the bag.  Use a Wilton 1M star tip to achieve the look pictured.  Starting in the center of each cupcake, swirl the icing in a tight spiral until the top is covered.

Since these cupcakes use cream cheese frosting, keep them refrigerated until you serve them, then bring them up to room temperature before eating.

Makes 18 cupcakes.

UPDATE: Lately I have been substituting 1/2 C of oil for 1/2 C of the butter and adding it after the eggs. I have also switched to cake flour (2 1/2 C plus 5 T) and sifting the dry ingredients together. This makes for a very soft, fluffy, moist cupcake.

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53 Comments leave one →
  1. June 12, 2009 7:28 pm

    Oh, these look so pretty and so yummy!

  2. June 12, 2009 8:04 pm

    So cute! Great job, totally making me hungry! I could eat about half of those myself I’m sure ;) Darn my wicked sweet tooth LOL!

    • June 12, 2009 11:12 pm

      Thanks! We totally destroyed them. I couldn’t stay away. Right after I frosted them I dropped one. Of course, I had to eat the casualty….

  3. June 13, 2009 5:55 am

    These look great. I even shared them on facebook. I love the rich colors and the cream cheese frosting is always a winner.
    Awesome,
    Susie

    • June 13, 2009 9:36 pm

      Thanks for sharing these, Susie! That really means a lot; recipes are meant to be shared. Cream cheese frosting is a huge personal fave, so I couldn’t resist it for my first posted cupcake recipe.

  4. June 13, 2009 6:58 am

    The color of those cupcakes is spectacular!

    • June 13, 2009 9:37 pm

      So glad you like the color! I wanted to personalize it and make them really bold, so I decided to forego the usual ol’ food coloring. The icing colors really achieved their purpose!

  5. June 13, 2009 8:27 am

    GREAT idea!!!! They sound soooo yummy!!!!

  6. June 13, 2009 9:20 am

    Go Gators! You did a great job the right color orange and blue. These look great!

    • June 13, 2009 9:38 pm

      Thanks, Sarah! I knew since I was making them for a Gator fan I needed to get the colors right. My husband is requesting Florida State colors for himself, but that gold color is going to be really hard to pull off. I am always up for a challenge, though…

  7. Dana permalink
    June 13, 2009 10:22 am

    GO GATORS!!!!

  8. Refa permalink
    June 13, 2009 2:18 pm

    beautiful colour

    can i fine those colors in amazon ???

    • June 13, 2009 9:40 pm

      Thanks for asking this, Refa! I have added links to these items in my Amazon store in case anyone wants to make the same colors. I would never have thought of this otherwise!

  9. Refa permalink
    June 13, 2009 2:18 pm

    beautiful and strong color …

    can i fine those colors in amazon ???

  10. June 13, 2009 5:53 pm

    impressive!! beyond impressive!! what a great idea haley.. the color is so attractive and beautiful.

    • June 13, 2009 9:42 pm

      Thanks, Nora! I think the color that these pastes achieved is really outstanding. And I swear they are very easy! I rarely make full-scale cakes because of the effort, but I love to make cupcakes. The single servings are also much better for my hips…

  11. June 14, 2009 10:31 am

    These do look wonderful – the bright colors are especially appetizing!

    • June 15, 2009 10:03 pm

      I love the bold color – it makes them just a little less vanilla! (ha, ha – couldn’t help myself).

  12. June 14, 2009 4:42 pm

    I love the bright colored frosting, they’re beautiful. I can eat half a dozen of them in one sitting.:-)

    • June 15, 2009 10:02 pm

      I could take out another half a dozen, and then we’d be left with three each to finish off. Not a bad proposition, eh?

  13. December 13, 2009 7:35 pm

    Thanks so much for the recipe. I used the cream cheese frosting for some “mad” rainbow cupcakes I made for my daughter’s Alice in Wonderland party yesterday. The frosting was PERFECT! I got tons of compliments.

    • December 13, 2009 7:54 pm

      Awesome! I’m so glad it helped make your daughter’s big day special!

  14. January 9, 2010 10:15 pm

    Hey, nice blog, just looking around some blogs, seems a pretty nice platform you are using. I’m currently using WordPress for a few of my sites but looking to change one of them over to a platform similar to yours as a trial run. Keep up the good work!

  15. March 4, 2010 12:14 am

    These are so cute!

  16. March 22, 2010 6:34 pm

    I LOVE THE CUPCAKES I MADE THEM MY SELVES THEY TASTE REALLY TASTE GOOD AND I LOVE THE CREAMCHEESE FROSTING IT IS THE BEST!!!

  17. lisi permalink
    June 6, 2010 4:30 pm

    As a UF student who’s birthday was this past week… I know what I’m making today! Thanks!!!!

  18. Jess permalink
    August 18, 2010 3:33 pm

    Hi there!

    I found this via some googling. I’m looking for a great recipe for cream cheese icing that’s dye-able. I’ve had issues in the past getting it to be a good color. When I tried this before, I needed so much food coloring that your mouth turned that color when you ate it. The cake I’m making is for a rehearsal dinner so I can only imagine the disaster if I turned everyone’s mouth blue! Is this recipe different?

  19. February 22, 2011 5:16 am

    hmmm soo yummy! i want some!

  20. March 21, 2011 12:44 pm

    Those look really good, and I especially like the choice color of icing! I’ll have to print this off and find time to mix up a batch later this week.

  21. Amanda permalink
    July 21, 2011 6:45 pm

    Hi there. Thanks for the recipe. I think I might just use it for my sons 1st birthday. We are having a finding nemo theme. I don’t know if this has been asked or if its stated somewhere but how did you get the frosting those colors?

    • July 21, 2011 10:30 pm

      1/4 tsp of Wilton icing color pastes in royal blue and orange added to the icing. I split the icing recipe in half and blended those in. They sell them at Wal-Mart, Michael’s, Joann’s – anywhere with a Wilton cake decorating section.

  22. roxie permalink
    July 22, 2011 8:51 am

    hi! thanks for sharing this recipe! I would like to check if you used plain flour? also, is the lemon extract also comes in essence form? thanks in advance!

    • July 22, 2011 9:10 am

      Hi there! I used all purpose flour. The lemon extract is just the very standard liquid stuff; I’m not aware of using it in essence form for baking. Penzey’s ( http://www.penzeys.com ) makes a great lemon extract.

  23. Danielle permalink
    October 28, 2011 8:08 pm

    if i dont have lemon extract, will it still taste good?

    • October 29, 2011 9:22 am

      Yes, it certainly will. It will just be a plain vanilla flavor, which is pretty yummy, too.

  24. RayRay Warner permalink
    December 15, 2011 7:49 pm

    These cucpakes hopefully will be delicious…..IM COUTING ON YOU Appogiatarra!!!!:P

  25. February 15, 2012 7:02 am

    Those look really good, and I especially like the choice color of icing! I’ll have to print this off and find time to mix up a batch later this week.

  26. Tyndle permalink
    May 18, 2012 1:04 pm

    I think something on the frosting is written wrong. Am I supposed to add butter or normal sugar?

    • May 18, 2012 1:48 pm

      There’s butter and confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar) in the frosting. No granulated sugar at all! Just cream all the ingredients for the frosting together.

  27. Kendra permalink
    July 14, 2012 4:34 pm

    Hello my name Is Kendra I was just concerned I do not have lemon extract would it taste okay without?

    • July 14, 2012 7:07 pm

      Absolutely. It will still be yummy with just vanilla!

  28. Melanie permalink
    September 24, 2012 1:34 pm

    I need to make these cupcakes for the children’s bible study I teach on sunday nights. We are going to have a color theme that night of orange and blue, so these will be great.

  29. Georgia permalink
    March 9, 2013 6:54 pm

    Hi, I’m currently out of butter, can i substitute margarine instead? I use devondale margarine. Thanks

    • March 9, 2013 8:56 pm

      You could substitute margarine for butter in the cupcakes, but I wouldn’t use it in the frosting. Instead, use another 4 oz of cream cheese.

      • Georgia permalink
        March 10, 2013 4:27 am

        ok thanks so much, that’s exactly what i’ll do :)

        • March 10, 2013 7:16 pm

          Great! I’d love to hear how you like them. Also, I started using 1/2 C of oil instead of a 1/2 C of butter/margarine. Feel free to make that swap, too! Enjoy!

Trackbacks

  1. BBA #8: Cinnamon Rolls « Appoggiatura
  2. the simple me » Blog Archive » Vanilla Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
  3. All Cupcakes » Blog Archive » Nice Cupcakes photos

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