Golden Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

This is the one!

I searched for months to find the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe.  I knew I could always open a box cake mix  but I really wanted to know that I had a recipe to make a cupcake or a cake from scratch that would taste just as good!  Surely, there was one out there.  I wanted a cupcake that was moist, but not crumbly with a rich sweet vanilla flavor.

I never realized just how many different ways you can mix up a vanilla cake.  Some called for 5 eggs, while others call for just egg yolks, or cake flour or all purpose flour or beat for several minutes, use shortening, use oil...the list goes on and on.  I bet I baked 10 to 15 different recipes.  It was just horrible having to taste all those recipes...ha!  Bad on the hips, yummy on the lips!

But then....I found the one!

I first time I made this particular vanilla cake recipe, I made it into cupcakes and topped them with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting (picture above).  But I have since made them with a Chocolate Buttercream (picture below) and added a Kit Kat piece that took it to a "whole nutha level"!!!

These were Kit Kat cupcakes for my son-in-laws 30th birthday last year!

Last weekend I used this recipe to make cake pops.  When I made the cake pops, I made the recipe in a 13x9 cake pan.  It turned out to be a cake that we literally ate with no icing...it was just that good!  I had to slap hands (not really) so that I would have some left for the cake pops.

Okay, okay...back to the recipe.

Here is the recipe that I have dubbed the "best vanilla cake ever" by me!

GOLDEN VANILLA CUPCAKES

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1/2 cup shortening

2 cups sugar

5 egg yolks

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup buttermilk

1 tablespoon vanilla

5 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream butter and shortening.  Add sugar and beat until smooth, approximately 2-3 minutes.  Add egg yolks and beat well.  Combine flour and baking powder.  Alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk to the creamed mixture.  Stir in vanilla.  Fold in egg whites.  Pour batter into 3 greased, floured cake pans, or a 13x9 cake pan, or 24 cupcakes.  Bake for approximately 20 minutes for cakes and 15 minutes for cupcakes or until golden brown on top and a toothpick stuck in middle comes out clean.  Cool and frost.

STRAWBERRY BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

2 sticks butter, softened

1 box powdered sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 large strawberries, diced 

2 tablespoons heavy cream

Cream butter. Add sugar and mix until smooth.  Add heavy cream.  Stir in vanilla and diced strawberries.

Frost a 13x9 cake or cupcakes. 

ENJOY!
"Click Here for Printable Recipe"