My Go To Cupcake Recipe With Variations

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and position a rack in the middle of the oven. Line one 12-cup standard muffin tin or two 24-cup mini-muffin tins with cupcake liners.
• Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl.
• In another medium bowl, beat the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until light and foamy, about 2 minutes. While beating, gradually pour in the melted butter and then the vanilla.
• While mixing slowly, add half of the flour mixture. Then add all the milk, followed by the remaining flour mixture; take care not to overmix the batter. Divide the batter evenly in the prepared muffin tin.
• Bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean, rotating the tin about halfway through baking time, 18 to 20 minutes for standard cupcakes or 10 to 12 minutes for minis. Cool the cupcakes in the tin on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on the rack completely. Frost and decorate as desired.

Steps:

• Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl together.
• In a different large bowl, whisk the sugar, oil, and egg whites together.
• Whisk in the vanilla.
• Add the flour mix into the bowl and whisk thoroughly.
• The mix will be pretty crumbly and not sticking together right-- add enough milk/soymilk/etc. to make a nice creamy smooth batter. I just add little by little until it blends. If you add too much and the batter's runny, just add some flour to even it out.
• Pour into a lined Texas Muffin (or regular cupcake) tin, filling each one about halfway.
• Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned on top.
• Let cool for about 45 minutes, or until no longer warm to the touch, then you can add your favorite frosting.
• VARIATIONS:.
• For pumpkin cupcakes, use 1/4 cup oil, lower the vanilla to 1 tsp, and add 3/4 cup pumpkin and 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice. May have to bake a little longer due to all the extra moisture from the pumpkin.
• For rich chocolate cupcakes, add 1/4 cup cocoa powder and lower the vanilla to 1 teaspoons. You can also use 1 cup chocolate Nesquik powder in place of the sugar with the vanilla down to 1 teaspoon because it has less sugar that way but the cocoa powder method tastes far richer.
• For matcha green tea cupcakes, lower the vanilla to 1 tsp and add 15g matcha powder (the kind I buy comes in 5g packets, if you use the loose kind I think it'd be 1 teaspoon or maybe 1 1/2 teaspoons of powder.).
• For rose cupcakes, use 2 tsp rosewater instead of vanilla and add 4 drops of red food coloring. You can also use orange blossom water the same way for orange cupcakes!
• For lavender cupcakes, grind the sugar with 1/4 tsp dried lavender buds in a food processor then follow the recipe as written. A little purple food dye makes for nice presentation.
• For strawberry cupcakes, reduce the vanilla to 1 tsp and replace the sugar with 1 cup of strawberry Nesquik powder.