The Best Birthday Cupcakes are the perfect dessert recipe for your special celebration! A light and moist homemade vanilla cake is topped with the perfect whipped buttercream and rainbow sprinkles for a sweet treat great for any occasion!

Best Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

What’s a birthday celebration without the Best Birthday Cupcakes?! Whether it is Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes, Orange Creamsicle Cupcakes or this simple vanilla cupcake recipe, cupcakes are perfect for celebrating any special occasions.

I am sharing this cupcake recipe video in celebration of my five year blog birthday! It is hard to believe that I have been sharing recipes with you on this little blog of mine for five whole years now. I guess the old adage holds true though, ‘Time flies when you are having fun!’.

How to make moist cupcakes

I have a confession to make. OK, I lied, I have two confessions to make. First of all I don’t bake all that often. I don’t enjoy it as much as cooking where I can haphazardly toss things together and make it work as I go.

Baking is a science and requires diligent measuring and testing. With that said, when I do bake, I want it to be something amazing and completely worth the effort. Hence these Best Birthday Cupcakes!

My second confession is that I only started using cake flour a few years ago! This may be shocking to seasoned bakers, but many everyday cooks may be like myself asking yourselves, what is the big difference?

The idea of stocking my overflowing pantry with a third flour option in addition to my all-purpose and whole wheat flours seemed unnecessary before.

What is cake flour?

Cake flour has a lower protein (gluten) content and that makes a difference in the texture of the cake crumb.

I was skeptical that it would make a difference, but I am here to tell you that I was SO wrong. My family can tell you that I don’t often admit I am wrong, so please know this is a very serious deal! 😉 

Can I substitute all-purpose flour for cake flour?

For every cup of cake flour, replace it with one cup of all-purpose flour. Remove two tablespoons of each cup of all-purpose flour and replace it with two tablespoons of corn starch.

While cake flour is the ideal ingredient for the best birthday cupcakes, it’s not in everyone’s pantry.

Homemade Cupcakes

I decided I should give cake flour a try recently when I was working on making vanilla cupcakes and wanted to see if it would make a difference.

On the first try, I instantly realized it created such a like and airy crumb to the homemade cupcakes, which was better than anything I could have achieved with all-purpose flour.

I will officially never use anything but cake flour in cakes again. So I implore you to take the leap and give cake flour a try!

What kind of frosting should I use on birthday cupcakes?

If you are going through the effort of making homemade cupcakes, the frosting isn’t a good spot to cut corners. Make this amazing homemade Buttercream. You will thank me later!

If you really want to take your cupcakes to the next level for a special occasion, try this Brown Butter Buttercream.

How do I make the perfect cupcake?

Homemade cupcakes seem intimidating, but really they are quite simple to make. It really is worth the the extra 10 minutes to make these amazing birthday cupcakes opposed to a box mix.

For these vanilla cupcakes, beat the butter and sugar until smooth and then mix the wet ingredients in a large bowl with a beater.

• 1 c. salted butter
• 1 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 c. milk
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

If you don’t have almond extract, you can substitute additional vanilla extract. The almond extract really gives it an extra subtle flavor that is fantastic though.

If you are feeling particularly ambitious, you can sift all the dry ingredients together, but honestly I usually skip that step. Just add the flour to the bowl topped with the remaining dry ingredients.

On low speed, mix the dry ingredients on top for a few seconds before blending them into the wet ingredients. If you want to add extra birthday flair to your cupcakes, you can add 1/3 cup of rainbow sprinkles to the batter at this point.

• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour (see notes above for substituting all-purpose flour)
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

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Baking Vanilla Cupcakes

Using a #20 Scoop or ice cream scoop, fill the lined muffin tins 2/3 full. I like use a scoop to fill the liners so I don’t spill as much on my cupcake pan. You can certainly use a measuring cup or spoon, but a scoop helps me fill each cupcake liner with the same amount of batter so they bake evenly.

Bake the vanilla cupcakes at 350° for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.

Frosting for cupcakes

• 1/2 batch buttercream
• 1/4 c. rainbow sprinkles

Frost each cooled cupcake with a swirl of buttercream and top it immediately with sprinkles. If you frost all of the cupcakes before adding sprinkles, the buttercream will set just slightly and delicate sprinkles won’t stick well to the frosting.

If you are letting the kids help with adding sprinkles, I recommend putting the cupcakes in a baking pan so it catches all the extra sprinkles. You can then pour the excess sprinkles back into the sprinkle jar. It’s much better than them rolling all over your floor!

Best Cupcakes Ever!

When I made these cupcakes for my sister’s birthday while she was home last, her husband stole one while we were waiting for dinner to be made.

After the first bite he exclaimed, “I think these are the best cupcakes I have ever eaten!”. NO JOKE! I thought surely he is just overly hungry and that is influencing this proclamation.

That was clearly not the case, because he continued to insist throughout the weekend that these were the best cupcakes ever! They now want me to make these for their daughter’s upcoming baptism, which I happily agreed to as the godmother.

These cupcakes are truly the perfect treat for any special occasion and will certainly please a crowd!

More Birthday Cake Ideas!

If you want to add more variety to your birthday celebration or try something new this year, check out more great birthday cake ideas below.

• Quadruple Chocolate Birthday Cake
• Fresh Strawberry Ombre Cake
• Birthday Donuts
• New York Cheesecake
• Apple Bundt Cake
• Birthday Cake Batter Ice Cream