59 Homemade and Not-So-Homemade Vanilla Cupcakes

More goodbye cupcakes. At work, we had a manager in training. He was a really cool dude. Really swell. When his training came to end, I asked him what kind of cupcakes he would like and the answer I got back was kind of a shocking request for me. Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing. Weird. After asking him to reconsider a few times, I kept being told vanilla. There had to be a way to give a twist to these oddly simple cupcakes. Since I always strive for all kinds of feedback. Since I love being told how delicious the cupcakes I make are. Since I love being told about how not as delicious the occasion store bought cupcakes that get brought in are... It had to be a taste test.

My sister and I had picked up some cupcakes mixes with filling. When I came up with this taste test idea, I picked up a tub of icing. Just follow the directions on the box and these are done in no time. Exactly what someone who uses a boxed cupcake mix wants more than anything. Barely any work that takes barely any time. Bunch of lazy people!

For my homemade version of these cupcakes, I quick looked up a vanilla cake recipe. Shouldn't be that hard to find a good one. I figured any old recipe would do. I wen with the first one I found on the Internet. Next, I needed a vanilla filling recipe. I went with the same first-recipe-I-find-is-good-enough method. Finally, I knew I had the same vanilla butter cream icing recipe that we always use well committed to memory. Unfortunately, it was kinda like recipe Russian roulette. Everyone knows that there are a few bad recipes out there. It's just a matter of how lucky you are. On this one my luck ran out. And too bad this was the one time I wanted to prove something. The recipes were easy as always. I don't recall any problems. I made the cupcakes. I whipped up the filling. I put the tip to fill cupcakes on a piping bag. I poked the tip into the top of each cupcake and squeezed until the filling just came out around the tip. Be careful though. Hold the cupcakes when you fill them. You can overfill them and the filling will squirt through the bottom of the cupcake, through the paper. As for the icing, I've made it a zillion times before. Naturally, no problems.

So I topped each cupcake with it's own distinct color of sprinkles. Homemade cupcakes with one color and boxed cupcakes with a different cupcakes. I packed them up and brought them into work. All night I heard a mix of both. "You made the red ones" "I know that you made the blue ones" It was entertaining to hear the opinions on both. It didn't hurt my feelings to hear that the ones that I actually made "weren't as good as your cupcakes normally are" or that the ones from the box are "just as perfect as always".

When it came down to it, for me, the homemade cupcakes were not good. The cupcakes themselves were really dense. Not as fluffy as I would normally like. The filling was awesome though! Just like the vanilla filling in the Hostess cupcakes. The boxed cupcakes were good, but the filling was disgusting. It tasted like cement and looked like glue. I think the dead give away in the taste test was just the general appearance. The boxed cupcakes were very yellow and the store bought icing was an unattainable white compared to homemade icing. If you try it, color the icing. It wouldn't be as obvious. I will definitely try this again.

Cupcake Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 pinch salt

5 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces

2/3 cup milk

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cupcake How to

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a standard muffin tin with 12 paper cupcake liners. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl; set aside.

2. Heat the butter and milk in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter has melted. Beat the sugar, eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla with an electric mixer in a large bowl until it has thickened slightly and is lighter in color. Gradually beat in the flour mixture on low speed until just incorporated. Slowly pour in the hot milk, beating until just combined.

3. Divide batter evenly between cupcake liners. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool cupcakes in pan for 10 minutes. Transfer cupcakes to a cooling rack to cool completely. 

Vanilla Filling Ingredients

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup shortening

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1 pinch salt

3 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling How to

1. In a large bowl, beat butter and shortening together until smooth.

2. Blend in confectioners' sugar and pinch of salt. Gradually beat in 3 tablespoons milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy.

3. Fill a pastry bag with a small tip. Push tip through bottom of paper liner to fill each cupcake.