My daughter decided that she wanted vanilla cupcakes with strawberry icing to celebrate her birthday, so I perused Pinterest in search of a delicious recipe. I searched for vanilla cupcakes and one of the most seamingly exciting was the “Ultimate” Vanilla Cupcake over at Cupcake Project. They claim to  have had over 50 bakers taste this recipe and it is supposed to be the bomb.

On my first attempt, I followed their recipe to the letter (with the exception of omitting vanilla beans because I didn’t have any on hand).  I was quite disappointed at how the cupcakes came out. While they were cooking, they looked spectacular. They were plumping up quite nicely. But the longer they cooked, the more they deflated. The final cooking time to get a clean toothpick was 20 minutes.  I am still really confused, but here is how they looked once cooled. Completely Flat.

Since I was making these for my daughter’s special day, I decided to attempt the recipe again with a few changes.  For the second attempt, I decided to try sifting the flour. I also decided to mix the batter beyond the instructions that just call for mixing until blended. I ran the mixer for over 4 minutes and still couldn’t get the light fluffy consistency I wanted, but I forged ahead anyway as to not waste the ingredients.

Needless to say, the second batch didn’t come out any better than the first. I am still wondering if perhaps I just needed to fill the cups a little more, but I don’t know that I want to waste the ingredients on another try at this recipe.

The flavor of the cupcakes is really good, but they are quite dense from both attempts. I will definitely be in search of another vanilla recipe.

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