I Can't Believe it's Not Box Cake Mix! Scratch Cupcakes

Holy Cow!! These are the best scratch cupcakes! I’m not a big scratch cake/cupcake baker…they always come out to heavy and dense for my taste. I found this recipe on Recipe*Zaar and gave it a try because I was too lazy to go to the store to get a box mix. WOW!! These are light and fluffy!!! I wanted to share with everyone. I hope you like them!!! You just need to make sure to follow the recipe exactly! YUM!!!

I Can’t Believe it’s Not Box Cake Mix! Scratch Cupcakes

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup Crisco shortening, room temperature
  • 2 cups sugar, ground in the processor until fine (measure before processing)
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1/8 teaspoon almond extract or lemon extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 3/4 cups cake flour or all-purpose flour (or combined together)
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 cup warm half-and-half cream or full-fat milk (this is important, warm the milk! It doesn’t need to be hot just warm to the touch.)

Instructions

  1. 1. Set oven to 375 degrees (will reduce oven temperature just before baking cupcakes).
  2. 2. Line 24 muffin pans with paper cupcake liners.
  3. 3. In an electric mixer, cream butter and shortening until fluffy.
  4. 4. Add in the eggs(one at a time) and the extracts and beat about 3-4 minutes on high speed (the mixture will seem to be a bit lumpy but will even out when you add in the sugar).
  5. 5. Add in the sugar; beat well (another 3 minutes) until sugar is COMPLETELY combined.
  6. 6. In a bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder.
  7. 7.Blend into the creamed ingredients, along with the warm milk until smooth (about 3 minutes).
  8. 8. Fill the prepared pans about two-thirds full.
  9. 9.IMMEDIATELY, reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.
  10. Place the cupcakes in oven, and bake for about 20-24 minutes, or until the cupcakes test done.
  11. ***NOTE: I just use 2 cups icing sugar and 1/2 cup white granulated sugar instead of processing the sugar, it works out fine this way.

Comments (6)

on

I tried these today on my first cuppie order. The order was for a little boys kindergarten class so and they LOVED them! Thanks!

on

I wanted to try a new recipe for cupcakes and chose this one... I was pleasantly suprised at the way they turned out....very soft, were level and just looked good. Haven't tasted them as yet, but others say they tasted very good. Will definitely use this recipe again. Oh! and I got 30 cupcakes out of the mixture and they rose level with the cupcake liner.