One dozen Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. Simple & delicious – the perfect cupcake recipe for any and all occasions!
I want a cupcake, maybe two. More than likely my husband and kiddos would like one too. Really, who doesn’t want a cupcake? Now we’ve happily enjoyed our cupcakes and the cupcake craze has been subdued. Thing is, there’s now 20 cupcakes remaining. I certainly don’t want to eat 20 more cupcakes (scratch that, I most certainly do, but I know better) so now I have 20 cupcakes to distribute. As much as I love to share my joy of baking, there’s days I don’t feel up to peddling baked goods.
That’s just one scenario. There’s many other reasons why you might only want 12 cupcakes. Or why you might need 24. Today I’ll share a quick and simple recipe for a dozen of yellow cupcakes. You could easily double the recipe if need be so.
This is a simple and basic cupcake recipe that yields a perfectly sweet, moist and fluffy cupcake that you can mix up and bake in no time. I topped these cupcakes with an equally simple & delicious chocolate buttercream.
Combined they create the perfect bite of cupcake. Way better than anything from a box and almost as effortless. Like you need any more reasons to bake cupcakes 😉
Thanks so much for stopping by! Happy Baking!
-Amanda-
One Dozen Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- For Cupcakes:
- 1/2 cup salted butter softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup milk
- For Frosting:
- 4 tablespoon salted butter softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 6 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoon milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar.
- Beat in eggs and vanilla.
- Mix in flour, milk, baking powder and salt until thoroughly combined. Do not overmix.
- Spoon batter into cupcake liners until 3/4 full. Do not over fill.
- Bake for 16 - 20 minutes or until tops spring back when pressed or toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
- Let cupcakes rest in pan for a few minutes before removing to wire rack.
- Cool completely before frosting.
- For Frosting:
- In a mixing bowl, cream butter.
- Add in powdered sugar, cocoa powder, milk and vanilla extract.
- Beat, scraping sides, until creamy and combined.
- If you would like frosting a little stiffer, beat in additional powdered sugar until you reach desired consistency.
- Pipe or spread onto cupcakes.
I love yellow cake with chocolate frosting, absolute favorite. One dozen is the perfect amount.
Thanks Dawn! It’s my favorite too 🙂
Lived it,it is perfect for when your family members come over and you want to make them something special!
Perfect cupcake combination!! Cannot wait to try.
Thanks Jill 🙂
Yes! I generally cook for two people and one of us (cough*him*cough) gets bored very, very, very easily and never eats leftovers. If you consider cupcakes leftovers which apparently HE does. LOL!! So yes, I LOVE this recipe! Hahaha 🙂
No leftovers!!! Lol – what a stinker! I guess that leaves more cupcakes for you, Erin 🙂
Your pictures are beautiful, Amanda! I am a fan of small batch baked goods whether it’s cookies, cupcakes, bars, or cakes. I so am with you about not wanting to peddle sweets every time I bake. These cupcakes are classic and look delicious!!
Thanks so much, Thao 🙂 Yes, small batch sweets are best, most of the time 😉
To a fellow pennsylvanian….just served at a fourth of July picnic and they were a big hit! Grandpa who doesn’t like anything gobbled them up! Thanks for recipe!
Awesome! Glad you, your family and your grandpa enjoyed the cupcakes! Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July – thanks for stopping by 🙂
P.S. YAY for PA!!!!
Just made these cupcakes and I have to say they turned out great! Right level of sugar in the recipe and were so easy to make. Kids loved them!
Wonderful! So glad to hear you all enjoyed them! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Can you half this recipe? I am a single person and would like to just make 6
You definitely could cut the recipe in half! You could also make the full amount of cupcakes and freeze the rest for later.
I made this recipe and followed it exactly. The cupcake tasted like cornbread and the frosting was just liquid. I tried adding more sugar and that did nothing but make it too sweet. I would not recommend this recipe. Sorry.
Hi Brandy. Sorry this didn’t turn out well for you & I’d like to help.
If a cake turns out dry & dense and the ingredients were measured correctly – it’s usually a result of over-mixing & over baking.
I’m not sure how the frosting turned out liquid – there’s very little liquid in the recipe. Usually it turns out a little too stiff and needs additional milk beaten in…?
I had the exact same result! Very interesting. Maybe for me it is baking at altitude in Denver.
Dear Amanda,
even in Germany your recipe finds a great following. I could eat them without frosting. I made a mini version of cupcakes but i didn’t have a tray. I guess I need one now. 🙂
Hi Zoe! Wonderful – so glad to hear you enjoy the cupcakes!
Whereabouts are you in Germany? I have family outside Darmstadt 🙂
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Great cupcakes just made them with my girls and they love them as much as I do lol yummmm
Yay! So glad you & your girls enjoyed them ♥
Thanks so much for stopping by Annie 🙂
Hi Amanda!
I’m ready to try your recipe but I don’t have salted butter at home. If I usa unsalted butter, how much salt should I add to the recipe?
Thanks!!
Hi Ana!
I always bake with salted butter – I prefer the extra flavor it lends to sweets.
You could add a little pinch of salt, or just sub out with unsalted butter altogether. A lot of my readers tell me they only bake with unsalted butter and the recipes they try of mine turn out perfectly without any additional salt.
Hope this helps! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
I made 4 batches of this recipe last week for my son’s birthday party. The first batch was a trial run. The results weren’t as moist and fluffy as I expected and I could taste baking powder aftertaste. For the next batch, I reduced baking powder by a quarter tsp and used a weighing scale to measure flour (125 gms to a cup) and that did it.
Thank you for awesome recipe…just made it ….so soft …thnx a lot
Yay! So glad you enjoyed the cupcakes. Thanks for stopping by Neha 🙂
I made this recipe and I absolutely love it. I would like to try lemon cupcakes. Can I use this recipe by using lemon extract instead of vanilla?
Hi Emily! So glad you enjoyed the recipe! You sure could use lemon extract instead of vanilla – it will be delicious!
These will be made tomorrow for my eclipse viewing party on Monday. I plan to use dark chocolate ganache on top, leaving a visible cake ring, to simulate a solar eclipse!
Awesome idea! Hope you enjoyed it!
How about that solar eclipse!?!?! Beautiful! We vacationed in South Carolina so we could see it in totality – such a wonderful experience!
Thanks for stopping by Carla 🙂
This was a very yummy cupcake! I did everything as written except I added 1/2 cup of sour cream. So soft and moist! Just perfect!
Thanks
I followed the directions to the letter and ended up with half a dozen 50% uncooked cupcakes. I (and my roommates) we’re disappointed with this recipe. I think I will go back to the basic recipe on the box of cake flour I was given last month.
Sorry to hear it didn’t work out for you. If they were under baked, they didn’t bake long enough or the oven temp was off. If you pop a toothpick in the center of the cupcake and it comes out clean – it’s ready.
Hope this helps 🙂
Delicious and Easy!! A perfect number of yummy cupcakes!
Hi Gigi! So glad you loved the cupcakes!
Thanks so much for stopping by ♥
Absolutely beautiful cupcakes. I followed the recipe exactly. They are so light its like eating air but with a buttery sweet vanilla taste!
Wonderful to hear!
So glad you enjoy the cupcakes Sally ♥
The taste of these was great, I made 15 cupcakes and they still overran the cups by a lot. Great taste and texture. I may cut the milk back to 1/2 C, since this recipe is 1/2 of the very old 1234 cake. My kids loved them and asked for them to be their birthday cake in the future. Thanks for this!
Glad you enjoyed ♥
I made these cupcakes for a party and they were DELICIOUS!!! The one thing is that when I mixed up all the ingredients, it looked almost like a dough, so I added about twice the amount of milk and the came out really fluffy and moist, like cupcakes should be. I also substituted 1/4 cup of coconut milk for extra flavor. But delicious!
The cake had a pretty good taste, but it was VERY eggy for some reason. All I smelled when I opened the oven was eggs, and it had that weird texture eggy cakes get. The icing recipe worked well, though.
Made these cupcakes for a custom order. I was a little worried after reading through some of the comments how they would turn out or taste. They’re delicious!! I don’t find them “eggy” at all, and not too sweet either. Sweetness of the frosting balances them out perfectly. I baked them at 325 for 17 minutes and they were perfectly even, which I always appreciate. Definitely recommend this recipe!
Hi! I found this recipe when searching for a small batch of yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting. I read all the comments and tips. The cupcakes turned out perfect. Moist and flavorful. I added the 1/2 sour cream, so thank you! As for the frosting and the dilemmas encountered, I learned many years ago to start small and never add all the ingredients at once. I started with the 1/2 cup of butter, then added one cup at of sifted powder sugar, one tablespoon of cocoa, and one tablespoon of milk. Then knew right away that it wouldn’t be enough and needed more cocoa. To balance the sweetness, and added 3oz of soft cream cheese, another cup of sifted powdered sugar, and 2 more tablespoons of cocoa. I did not added any additional milk, so one tablespoon total. I whipped it up and it was perfect and the perfect amount. Hope this helps!