Description
Dense and delicious! A quick and easy cake recipe that gives you a tangy, wonderfully vanilla cake with a sturdy crumb.
Ingredients
Batter
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 oz unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup greek yogurt (or sour cream or creme fraiche)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tbps vanilla bean paste* (or seeds from one vanilla bean pod, or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
Buttercream
8 oz unsalted butter, room temperature (two sticks)
3–4 cups confectioner’s sugar (around 12 oz)
1 tbs vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp heavy cream
Instructions
For Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 350º F. Line your pan with liners, or if baking cakes grease the pans with butter or coconut oil, then line with a parchment circle cut to fit the bottom.
In a large bowl combine flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar. Beat on low briefly to combine. Add butter, and mix on medium speed until coarse crumbs form, less than a minute. Blend in the sour cream, and you’ll find yourself with a lumpy batter.
Whisk together egg, egg yolk, and vanilla bean or paste in a small bowl and add to batter. It will be very thick and sticky. Divide evenly among cups in pan (I like my ice cream scoop for portioning).
Bake for 18-20 minutes for standard cupcakes (12-14 for mini), or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove cupcakes and cool completely on a rack.
For Buttercream
With a hand mixer, or a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, whip butter on high speed for at least three minutes, until it is light in color and doubles in volume. In one cup increments, beat in sugar (use more or less depending on taste and how sweet you like). Beat in salt, vanilla and last the heavy cream.
For a fancy yet incredibly easy touch, load up your buttercream into a pastry bag (or large baggie, corner snipped) fitted with a star or drop flower tip. Store covered for up to three days. Unfrosted cupcakes can be frozen as long as you can take the taunting from inside your freezer!
Notes
This recipe can easily be doubled for more cupcakes, or baked off in either two 6-inch, or one 8 or 9-inch cake pan until a toothpick comes out clean, between 25 and 30 minutes. When doubling the recipe, make sure to evenly distribute batter between pans.. because if it looks the same it bakes the same!
Keywords: cupcake, easy cupcakes, vanilla cupcakes, easy buttercream, greek yogurt