Vanilla Decorated Cupcakes

Dress up a regular vanilla buttercream cupcake and make it look fancy! Make these cupcakes to fill a Holiday Goody Box for your loved ones!

Materials needed:

~ If you're on a time crunch OR if you have this already in your pantry - Vanilla cake mix and frosting!

If you want to make this basic cupcake from scratch:

~ 1 cup of butter, room temperature

~ 1 ½ cup of sugar

~ 2 ½ teaspoons of vanilla extract

~ 3 ½ cups of cake flour (regular flour can also work but I highly recommend using cake flour!)

~ 4 teaspoons of baking powder

~ ½ teaspoon of salt

~ 6 large egg whites

~ 1 ½ cup of milk (water will work too)

If you want to make basic frosting from scratch:

~ 1 cup of unsalted butter

~ 5 cups of powdered sugar (add more if you want the frosting thicker)

~ 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

~ 4 Tablespoons of whole milk

Mixing the batter:

1. Combine and mix the dry ingredients (cake flour, baking powder, and salt) together in a bowl. Whisk and set the bowl aside.

2. Using an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugar together until it is creamy.

3. Add in the vanilla extract and mix together with the butter and sugar until well blended.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg whites and milk.

5. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients into the bowl with the butter, sugar, and vanilla extract mix. Beat the batter until you don’t see any lumps of dry ingredients.

Baking the batter:

After your batter is mixed well, line a cupcake baking tin with cupcake liners and fill with batter. Set the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Making the frosting:

1. Combine the butter and powdered sugar. Mix well.

2. Add in the vanilla extract and combine.

3. Add in the milk and mix until the frosting is completely combined. Mix until you get stiff peaks in the frosting.

Use a piping bag and whatever desired tip to frost the cupcakes. For these specific cupcakes, I added some chocolate with gold dust and crushed peppermint for decorations.