Ever since making chocolate cupcakes with mint buttercream frosting I’ve had cupcakes on my mind!
Big time!
I couldn’t wait to make more! So I decided to make these gorgeous vegan vanilla cupcakes with strawberry vanilla frosting!
And they came out so well!
I was especially thrilled with the frosting. I wasn’t sure how it would work out to use strawberry flavoring, but it did the job incredibly well and provided the most beautiful pale pink color, and the flavor was awesome. Reminded Jaye of a strawberry milkshake!
Cupcakes are so easy they’re my new favorite thing. So much easier than full cakes (though I love making cakes!), because they bake in less time and you don’t have to grease cake tins!
The only tricky part for me was in transferring the batter to the cupcake liners, my first batch of cupcakes was very messy, until I figured out that the best method was to transfer the batter to a jug with a pouring nozzle and pour it neatly into each cupcake liner.
Messiness problem solved.
The great thing about these cupcakes is that the flavors are so mild and blend so beautifully together. You’ve got the light flavors of vanilla blending with the sweet scented flavors of strawberries.
The texture of these vanilla cupcakes is also perfectly light and spongey.
You’ll love these cupcakes for their beautiful color, light and spongey texture and blend of flavors.
Decorate them with some fresh chopped strawberries if you’re serving them right away. If you want to keep them (they keep very well in a covered cake container in the fridge for up to a week), then don’t use fresh fruit for decoration as the strawberries will run and the cakes will become soggy.
Alternatively decorate with vegan sprinkles or dried coconut.
So let me know what you think of these gorgeous vegan vanilla cupcakes in the comments!
Rate the recipe and let me know how it went if you made them.
I’d love you to tag any photos #lovingitvegan on instagram too so I can admire them! Thank you!
Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Vanilla Frosting
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Prep Time: 20 mins - Cook Time: 25 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
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Yield: 12 -
Category: Dessert, Cake, Cupcakes -
Cuisine: Vegan
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Gorgeously light and spongey vegan vanilla cupcakes topped with creamy strawberry vanilla frosting. Perfect little packages of yum!
Ingredients
- Vanilla Cupcakes:
- 1 and 3/4 cups (220g) All-Purpose Flour
- 1 cup (200g) Sugar
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 cup (240ml) Soy Milk (or other non-dairy milk)
- 2 tsp (10ml) Vanilla Extract
- 1/3 cup (80ml) Olive Oil
- 1 Tbsp (15ml) White Vinegar
- Strawberry Vanilla Frosting
- 1/2 cup (112g) Vegan Butter
- 3 cups (375g) Powdered (confectioners) Sugar
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 tsp Strawberry Flavoring
- Decoration:
- Fresh Sliced Strawberries (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit (180 degrees celsius) and line a cupcake tray with 12 cupcake liners.
- Sift the flour into a bowl and add the sugar, baking soda and salt.
- Then add the soy milk, vanilla extract , olive oil and white vinegar.
- Mix in thoroughly, using a hand whisk to get rid of any lumps.
- Pour the batter into a jug that allows for easy pouring and pour evenly into the 12 cupcake liners, ensuring that all the batter is used up.
- Place into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Check the cupcakes at 20 minutes and if a toothpick inserted into the center doesn’t come out clean, then put them back in for a further 5 minutes.
- Move to a cooling rack and allow to cool thoroughly before frosting.
- Prepare the frosting by adding the vegan butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and strawberry flavoring to an electric mixer bowl. Begin mixing on low speed, gradually increasing speed until you have perfectly smooth frosting.
- Decorate with fresh strawberry slices before serving (optional).
Notes
*Recipe adapted from my Vegan Vanilla Cake.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Cupcake (of 12)
- Calories: 357
- Sugar: 47.9g
- Sodium: 274mg
- Fat: 10.8g
- Saturated Fat: 1.7g
- Carbohydrates: 62.6g
- Fiber: 0.6g
- Protein: 2.4g
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Great recipe, I changed a bit, my is gluten free refined sugar free 🙂 replaced half sugar with cacao powder and added some soy creamcheese and melted choc to frosting, yam!
Easy, beautiful, delicious – exactly as per your recommendation
★★★★★
These look incredible! I’m going to attempt to bake them this weekend, but will be using gluten-free flour. I only need it to be GF and DF, not necessarily vegan, so do you think I could use an egg to counteract the GF flour? Or would you still recommend I stick with applesauce (as per your suggestions on the cake version of this recipe)?
★★★★
Hi Amy! I have just this second posted a new blog for gluten-free vanilla cupcakes: http://lovingitvegan.com/gluten-free-vegan-vanilla-cupcakes-matcha-green-tea-frosting/ So please check out that recipe! I honestly have never tested this with an egg so I have no idea how that would work, though of course you could experiment. Since it comes out sooo well though with the applesauce etc, that would be my recommendation. 🙂
Hello- I dont see any mention of applesauce in the recipe. I was going to make this but now I’m afraid since the post is from 2 years ago some of the info may have been deleted?
There isn’t any applesauce in this recipe. The comments above are referring to making this recipe gluten-free and referring to the gluten-free version of this recipe which uses applesauce.
These look wonderful! I have a question about baking them! I’m thinking of doing these as a cake, instead of cupcakes. Have you done that? And would that just increase the baking time?
Thank you so much!!
Yes we have done that! Check out our vegan vanilla cake: http://lovingitvegan.com/vegan-vanilla-cake
Hello,
Could I replace the non-dairy milk with water? Thank you in advance
Hi Nika, I haven’t tried it like that so I can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t think it would be a good option, as the plant milk adds a creaminess to the batter that water wouldn’t. You can use any type of plant milk though.
Amazing cupcakes. I was concerned about the olive oil flavor, but wow these were SO good!
★★★★★
So glad to hear Colleen! Thanks so much for posting! 🙂
Hi!
What a fun recipe to make with my 2 kids. I was itching to bake asap but didn’t have all the ingredients so I substituted lime juice for the vinegar. And I used 1/2 coconut sugar, 1/2 white sugar. Then my kids and I added small chopped up strawberries in each cupcake and it was super tasty.
The only thing is they were a bit dry and stuck to the paper more than I would hope. Any suggestions? Something I did wrong because of the substitutions?
Keep it up!
Hi Leia, that sounds awesome, what a great idea to put strawberries into the cupcakes as well! The cupcakes are supposed to be perfectly moist, but I have found that they can stick to the liners when they are still warm and usually peel away perfectly when they’re cooled all the way. Not sure if this is relevant. If your cupcakes tasted a little dry then the only thing I can suggest is to weigh your flour (in case you didn’t) as using even a small amount too much can make the difference. Thanks so much for posting!
Yummmm. I made these late last night because I couldn’t wait to try them. I love the icing and the quantity is perfect for the cupcakes. I didn’t have strawberries so I put a couple of fresh raspberries on top and they looked so professional and perfect!
★★★★★
Brilliant! So glad to hear! Thanks for posting Ailish!
Hi, these cupcakes come out perfect every time. Can I use lemon juice instead of the vinegar to make lemon cupcakes? I will likely add lemon zest to the batter as well and combine with your lemon frosting 😊
★★★★★
I’m sure that would work great! I will be posting a lemon cupcake recipe soon too! 🙂 I used lemon zest and some lemon essence in mine. I think using lemon juice instead of vinegar would work fine, but I did still use vinegar with mine, the combo of lemon zest and lemon essence worked like a charm!
Hi Alison, the cakes came out beautifully! And so lemony! I used 2 Tbsp of lemon juice in place of the vinegar, added the zest of 1 lemon and a tsp of lemon essense just to make sure the lemon came through. Finished with your lemon buttercream & decorated with candied lemon slices… they really are devine!
That sounds SO awesome!! Enjoy! 🙂 🙂
Can i use coconut flour instead of all purpose or self raising?
new to the vegan world with a daughter with many allergies and shes begging me for cupcakes!
Hi Emma, is the reason for using coconut flour that you want to make it gluten free? If so, then try my gluten free vanilla cupcakes recipe. Coconut flour doesn’t work as a substitution here as it’s completely different in how it behaves in baking.
Thanks for sharing your great recipe Alison. I’m new to vegan baking but the cupcakes turned out much better than expected. Do you have any suggestions on how to cut down the sweetness of the frosting while maintaining the piping consistency? Are there other frosting recipes that could be used instead that taste less sweet?
★★★★★
Something like a vegan cream cheese frosting should be less sweet if you want to look around for a recipe like that (I don’t have one as I can’t get vegan cream cheese) and if you can get hold of vegan cream cheese where you are. 🙂
I can’t wait to make these!
What is strawberry flavoring though? Lol
Cool! Strawberry flavoring is just like strawberry essence so it’s like vanilla essence or extract. You’ll find it with the vanilla extract and orange extract and lemon extract and all the food dyes. 😁
I just made these for a friend’s birthday and they taste great!
Great stuff! Thanks for posting!
Thank you so much for this recipe. I have a friend who can’t eat dairy or egg and I made these for her today. I bake cupcakes often and was worried about baking with no egg. Well I shouldn’t have!! They turned out spongy and moist. I made them with almond milk. The frosting tastes just like normal buttercream. I didn’t have any strawberry essence so just left half as vanilla and added cocoa powder to the other half to make it chocolaty.
Forgot to rate! 5* for sure! 😋
★★★★★
So glad to hear they came out so well! And thanks for the rating! 🙂
I couldn’t find strawberry flavoring. How can I compensate? Do I double up on the vanilla extract (4 tsp) or would that be too overpowering?
I would just replace the strawberry flavoring with some non-dairy milk and leave the vanilla quantity the same. 🙂
Can this recipe be doubled or tripled?
★★★★★
Sure!
These look incredible! They look really tasty, and the frosting with strawberries – yum!! These pictures made me make my own cupcakes with lemon flavor. I love to run into other vegan bloggers, to get inspiration on a daily basis.
Thanks! Glad you were inspired! Lemon cupcakes are fab! 🙂
Can I use coconut oil instead of olive oil?
Yes, just make sure it’s melted. 🙂
Made these today couldn’t get strawberry flavouring so used puréed strawberries instead. They didn’t look to pretty as my cases were flimsy so cake spread but they tasted amazing like sponge cake with strawberry milkshake. Thank you for this recipe I will make them again with better cases then they can look as good as they taste
★★★★★
Awesome! So glad the taste was great! I’ve got a strawberry cake coming soon and I also used strawberry purée for the frosting and it does work very well! Thanks so much for posting! 🙂
Delicious, moist and tasty cupcakes
★★★★★
After several hits & misses with other vegan desserts, I decided to try this simple one.
I wasn’t expecting the cupcakes to rise that much but I did assume that there would be some sweet/pleasant taste to them because of the listed ingredients. I was also apprehensive towards the olive oil but I decided to follow the exact recipe expecting to tweak it after our taste test.
Boy, were we surprised! I was in awe that they actually rose like the picture shows & they are tryly cake-like! Also, the olive oil wasn’t off-putting (I did smell it as they were cooling so I personally tasted mines after they were refrigerated) & my picky fam couldn’t get enough.
I do plan to try them with veg oil some time in the future, but for now, I won’t change a thing. The are delicious & easy to make!
Ps. They do keep better stored in the fridge without the icing. I set them & the icing out maybe 1&1/2hrs. before dinner so that the icing would spread nicely & to aviod eating a cold cupcake.
★★★★
Great to hear they came out well! I have tried other vegetable oils like canola oil that is supposed to be more ‘neutral’ in flavor and you know I didn’t notice any difference. I prefer to use olive oil personally as I think it’s higher quality, but definitely any vegetable oil will work here so it’s worth seeing what you like best. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
can i switch the olive oil for rapeseed or vegetable oil??
Sure!
oh wow, these have to be the best vegan cupcakes I ever made. I substituted the olive oil with warmed up organic coconut oil and they where soft, moist and so, so tasty
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I’m planning on making this for a potluck, but would like to make them in a mini muffin tin. I’m hoping in would work the same way, but had anyone tried it? Thanks for any advice!
Hi Stephanie, haven’t tried this but am just thinking it might shorten your baking time. All the best!
Amazing! Do the cupcakes need to remain refrigerated?
★★★★★
Thanks Lynne! They only need to be in the fridge if you need them to stay fresh beyond the first couple of days. Room temperature is fine if they are going to be eaten fairly quickly (2-3 days).
Can vegetable oil be used as I don’t want a coconut or olive oil taste?
Yes, sure, but the olive oil does not result in an olive oil taste, but as you prefer, it won’t make a difference.
The best vegan baked good I have ever made. I added chunks of strawberries throughout the frosting. My husband who is a non vegan rated these 9/10.
★★★★★
Fantastic! So great to hear! Thanks for sharing Anna! 🙂
sooo cool
We love these cupcakes! Making them for the second time. The icing always comes out so thick, though, and is difficult to pipe. Any suggestions? Could I add a little almond milk to thin the consistency a little?
So glad you like them! Yes definitely add a little more almond milk to thin out the frosting, just add a tiny bit at a time until you reach the right consistency. 🙂
I can’t get vegan butter in my country it’s just not something that we can get and even if we can I have no idea where and how expensive anyway is there any way to make the icing without vegan butter but have the same consistency?
Mikky
Hi Mikky, I have a recipe for homemade vegan butter, but to tell you the truth I have tried it in frosting and yes it definitely does work but I didn’t like it as much as the store-bought versions of vegan butter. Some people have used coconut oil in frostings and say they like it, but I feel it would be the same result as my homemade vegan butter, you can refer to my post for more information about that and why I didn’t think it was totally ideal, but it definitely does work! In terms of finding a vegan butter in your country, you can also try just looking at the ingredients on all the margarines, and seeing if there is one that happens to be dairy-free. All the best!