i never knew i would hv craving for a simple vanilla cake with a glass of cold milk since i've always thought i had "complex tastebuds" but i did so i went hunting for a recipe in the middle of the night. i didn't wanna spend an hour baking a cake therefore i opted for cupcakes instead. i had really good results with magnolia bakery's red velvet cupcakes sometime back so i just wanted to try their famous vanilla cupcake recipe this time round.


i felt slightly apprehensive initially coz you wouldn't believe how bad some of the reviews for this recipe were. comments like "dense", "too sweet", "horrible", "middle sunken in" and "fit for the trash" were plagued all over the net so it was kinda demoralizing. same kind of reviews for the red velvet ones but since the recipe turned out pretty good for me, i went ahead with this. i'm sooo glad i did coz this is definitely the BEST vanilla cake i've ever had! as evident from my photos, none of those negative things happened to me, it was an extremely good cake!



it was buttery, had fine crumbs and the vanilla scent was apparent. perhaps it was becoz i substituted vanilla extract with bean paste + used half of the sugar with vanilla sugar. i didn't hv self raising flour so i made my own by combining plain flour, baking powder & salt together (substitution recipe courtesy of joyofbaking) and i feel that homemade self raising flour is definitely better than storebought. i also recommend using double-acting baking powder coz ever since i started using that, all my bakes turned out very nicely with light texture and fine crumbs. for the frosting, i used cannelle et vanille's vanilla buttercream. you can also follow magnolia bakery's old fashioned butter + confectioners sugar frosting but be forewarned, it will be very very sweet. in all honesty, i feel that the cupcakes are good enough to be eaten on their own, no frosting required.


recipe from magnolia bakery via foodnetwork