Perfectly Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes

  Whenever I see a recipe that claims to be the PERFECT this or the PERFECT that, I'm immediately skeptical. Not that I'm a glass-half-empty kind of a person (well, not all the time anyway), but I'm just a pretty tough critic when it comes to that claim. It has to be pretty amazing to be called PERFECT in my book, know what I mean? So, when I saw this recipe on LifeLoveandSugar.com, I immediately wanted to try it. TBH, I wasn't saying "Ok, Smarty Pants, PROVE it!" (well, maybe a little) but actually I was thinking "if these cupcakes are that good, then I want some!" especially when it comes to anything vanilla, which is my favorite flavor ever in the whole wide world.
 So I whipped up a batch..... WHOA.... Lemme just say this.. stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and make these cupcakes. They're AMAZING. And yes, I would even go so far as to say they're PERFECT! I'm not even kidding. To me, perfect isn't just good flavor. To me, a recipe is perfect when it also uses easy ingredients, is quick and simple to follow, and gives you the WOW factor at the end. This recipe is ALL of those things! I made them for the cast and crew of my current theatrical project, and they were a big hit! Honestly, they're so light and fluffy, I literally had to cut one in half to make sure that it was baked all the way through. SO GOOD. The original recipe also listed a vanilla icing to go with them, but I used a Swiss Meringue Buttercream, which is my fave. Side note, I'm still trying different buttercream recipes to see which ratio of egg whites to sugar to butter makes the best one. I'll get back to you on that at another time! In the meantime, just use your favorite vanilla icing and you'll be good to go.  So, big thanx to Lindsay over at Life Love and Sugar.
This one's a keeper, and it's definitely PERFECT!



1 2/3 cups all purpose flour 
1 cup sugar 
1/4 tsp baking soda 
1 tsp baking powder 
3/4 cup salted butter  
3 large egg whites 
3 tsp vanilla extract 
1/2 cup sour cream 
1/2 cup milk


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Add butter, egg whites, vanilla, sour cream and milk and mix on medium speed just until smooth. Do not over mix. Fill cupcake liners a little more than half way. Bake 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool for 1-2 minutes, then remove to cooling rack to finish cooling.


Tips:
To really pump up the vanilla flavor, I scraped the insides of a vanilla bean and added the "caviar" to the batter. As far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as too much vanilla flavor! More is more!
Btw, I doubled the recipe and used an ice cream scoop to portion the luscious batter into cupcake tins. I ended up with exactly 3 dozen cupcakes which was exactly what I wanted!