I want NO EGGY! I want perfect vanilla cupcakes!

I always love to consider or imagine myself being spontaneous in the kitchen, flipping through the cookbook and I can easily create beautiful food with my oven. Vanilla cupcakes are my fantasy as I randomly whip up the butter and sugar until fluffy like every recipe asks me to and then one egg at a time, followed by adding flour and bake until golden brown BLAH BLAH BLAH. OH NO NO NO! Why baking perfect vanilla cupcakes are so tricky?! After all those failures, here I summarise the checklist of a perfect vanilla cupcake.

1)perfectly domed when baked

2)moist

3)fluffy, not too dense yet sturdy for the frosting

4)not too eggy. Have you noticed sometimes cakes turn out to be too eggy so it smells weird? I don't want that!

5) REAL butter in the batter! I hate replacing it with any kinds of shortening or vegetable oil.

6) vanilla-ish enough so you can eat it alone without any frosting.
These are the basics, aren't they? Once again it proves the simplest is the hardest. I have tried loads of vanilla cupcake recipes and I had so much hope every time that my cupcakes could turn out the way I want them to be. I didn't have any luck until I got really frustrated and nearly gave up. Then fate led me to a website which is composed in German. YES! 'Fluffy vanilla cupcakes' was the title so I might as well give it my very last try. TADA! I was over the moon and literally jumped with joy in the kitchen. Later I found out the recipe came from a famous European blogger Manuela Kjeilen. The blog is so dreamy that everything is in pastel colours and the pictures are nicely shot. Worth visiting all the time! So here's her fluffy vanilla cupcake recipe! Happy baking!



Yields about 1 dozen


5 large egg whites, about 180 grams (room temp)

180 ml ​​lukewarm milk

2 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

285 grams of flour

2 tablespoons corn starch

350 grams of sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder + 1 tsp. baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

170 grams of room temperature unsalted butter



1)Preheat oven in 180˚C. Whisk together the egg whites, milk and vanilla. Set aside.

2)In a mixing bowl, sift the flour, sugar, corn starch, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.

3)Mix for a few minutes so all the dry ingredients are evenly distributed.

4) Slowly beat in the softened butter and eventually it will come together as coarse crumbs.

5)Gradually stir in the wet ingredients until it becomes creamy smooth. DO NOT OVERMIX.

6)Evenly divide the batter in lined cupcake pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

7) Let cool completely before frosting.



Tips:

*use only egg whites so the cupcakes taste less eggy and soft

*the batter looks pale as there are no egg yolks used in the recipe

*I bake them with lower temperature to avoid too much cracking on top. Experiment with your own oven

Perfectly domed 

Lower oven temperature avoids cracking on top 

Look at the texture! Crumbs are so fine!