Best Cupcake Recipes Updated for 2021 🧁

I've updated this list of the best cupcake recipes for 2021. I've updated it every year since it was first published because who doesn't love a sweet bite now and then?

Jump to:

• Why We ❤️ Cupcakes
• 💭 Tips
• 🥫 Storage
• 👩🏻‍🍳 Frequently asked questions
• 🧁 Chocolate cupcakes
• 🧁 Spice cupcakes
• 🧁 Cupcakes with fruit
• 🧁 All kinds of velvet cupcake recipes
• 🧁 Holiday decorated cupcakes
• 🧁 Unique cupcake flavors
• 🧁 Coconut cupcake recipes
• 🧁 Vanilla cupcakes recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

If you're looking for a particular flavor, unique decoration, or just plain cake you're gonna love this ever growing list of my favorites! Use the table of contents to click to the exact section you're interested in.

Be sure to check out the tips and recipe on the at the end of this post, too.

Why We ❤️ Cupcakes

Cupcake recipes have come a long way in the past few years. Plain chocolate cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes have evolved into creative, unique bites of cake in a range of flavors.

You can get them filled or unfilled, decorated to look like mermaids, or topped with mile high frosting...

You can find super easy cupcake recipes and those that take a little more time...

No matter how many we have we eagerly hunt for more!

Here are my picks for the best homemade cupcake recipes you'll find anywhere!

💭 Tips

Expert Tip: To make vanilla sugar just add a couple of vanilla beans to the sugar canister and let sit for a few days. You can actually do that with all kinds of things like orange zest, lemon zest, lavender...

These expert tips will help you make perfect cupcakes every single time!

• Baking powder and baking soda lose strength as they get older. It's best to replace them after six months. 
• Spices also get weaker in flavor as they age. Replace every 6 months if you can.
• Make sure all ingredients for your homemade cupcake recipes are at warm room temperature unless otherwise instructed.
• Scrape the sides of the bowl often with a rubber spatula when you are mixing your ingredients. 
• Don't overmix!
• Make cupcakes all the same size easily by using an ice cream scoop to put the batter in the muffin tins. They will bake more evenly.
• Make sure the cupcakes are completely cool before frosting.

🥫 Storage

Cupcakes (frosted or unfrosted) store well at room temperature for 3 to 4 days as long as they are tightly covered with plastic wrap or put in an airtight container.

For longer storage freeze unfrosted cupcakes for up to 3 months.

👩🏻‍🍳 Frequently asked questions

🧁 Chocolate cupcakes

Is there anyone that doesn't like chocolate cupcakes? You'll find that recipes including cocoa taste more chocolatey than those that use melted chocolate.

1. Chocolate Cream Filled Vanilla - Irresistible! Vanilla cupcakes with creamy, chocolate filling is a reverse of the famous favorite.
2. Chocolate Whiskey and Beer - Classic cocktail shot! Guinness, Whiskey, and Irish cream cupcakes are SO perfect for St Patrick's Day!
3. Mocha with Espresso Buttercream - She had me at espresso buttercream.
4. Chipotle Cinnamon Chocolate  - Double chocolate. Cinnamon buttercream. Whiskey caramel sauce. OMG, y'all.
5. Devil's Food  - Classic devil's food cupcakes sound... heavenly.
6. Turtle Brownie - Chocolate, pecans, caramel, and more chocolate because there's never too much chocolate.
7. Death by Chocolate - When it's time to go this is how I want to do it. Chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream, chocolate chips...
8. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough  - Chocolate cupcake with cookie dough filling and a cookie dough buttercream!
9. Snickers - Inspired by the candy bar.
10. S'mores - Remember campfires, cookouts, and starry summer nights? Well these take you back with every bite!
11. Mexican Hot Chocolate - I love Mexican hot chocolate because it's full of flavor from cinnamon and spice. I turned that flavor into these obsession-worthy cupcakes. YUM!
12. Super Moist Chocolate cupcakes is a simple chocolate cupcake recipe that's anything but basic!

🧁 Spice cupcakes

Spice cupcakes remind me of fall! Apples, cinnamon, and pumpkin are warm cozy flavors.

Cream cheese frosting is great on any of these - for an easy garnish dust with some cinnamon after frosting.

1. Bourbon and Spice are absolutely a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. What a great combination!
2. Carrot If you love carrot cake you'll love it in the single serving size!
3. Orange Spice is one of my favorite flavor combinations.
4. Chai Latte I am addicted to chai lattes in the winter ... having it in a cake form is beyond everything I could imagine.
5. Snickerdoodle mimics one of my favorite cookies... after all - you can never have too much cinnamon.
6. Pumpkin is the flavor of fall and these are warm, spicy goodness with cream cheese icing.

🧁 Cupcakes with fruit

Fruit gives cakes moisture as well as flavor. Follow the instructions carefully or you could end up with a too-wet dough that won't bake properly.

Expert Tip: If you're using pie filling in the center gently press the bottom down on the inside of the cupcake after hollowing it out but before filling it so that it's compressed. It helps the bottoms not get soggy.

1. Lemon is tart and tangy and mouth-wateringly good. These are lemon with lemon buttercream.
2. Apple Pie so easy! Made with cinnamon roll dough and a crumble topping.
3. Caramel Apple are melt in your mouth good with a spiced apple cake topped with caramel buttercream.
4. Easy Black Forest are like the cake! Chocolate with a cherry pie filling and rich whipped cream topping.
5. Strawberry have a bright pink strawberry buttercream to top the bright pink strawberry cake. They'd be perfect for a girl's birthday or baby shower.
6. Strawberry Lemonade  if you love sipping strawberry lemonade in the summer you'll want to have these on hand all year!
7. Bananas Foster triple banana flavor in this amazing cupcake inspired by the famous New Orleans dessert.
8. Hummingbird is a classic southern cake and these are the perfect little bite!
9. Lemon Meringue lemon cake filled with lemon curd and topped with a golden meringue.
10. Lychee Rose  look so beautiful and delicate! Definitely an exotic choice.
11. Orange Creamsicle brings back happy summer memories! Orange and vanilla is such a yummy combination.
12. Peaches and Cream  are one of our favorites. The cake is vanilla with just a touch of peach flavor then peach filling and cream cheese frosting. Definitely a must try!
13. White Chocolate Raspberry are two of my favorite flavors in one delicious bite.

🧁 All kinds of velvet cupcake recipes

There was a time when there were only red velvet cupcakes but these days you can find that velvety texture in almost any color imaginable.

Most of the time the recipe will call for buttermilk.

1. Classic Red Velvet are the classic. Soft, moist, and red with a classic frosting.
2. Red Velvet and Cheesecake Marbled I love the combination of citrus cheesecake and red velvet in these.
3. Black Velvet Cupcakes with Orange Filling Dark black velvet with an orange filling is perfect for Halloween.
4. Pink Velvet are light and pretty - I made them in a special pan and just glazed them instead of used frosting but you could use any vanilla or cream cheese frosting on them.
5. Green Velvet perfect for St Patrick's Day and super easy because you start with a cake mix.
6. Blue Velvet are such a pretty sapphire color! They'd be perfect for a boy baby shower or a beach party.
7. White Velvet are vanilla and white chocolate made super moist with Greek yogurt.

Expert Tip: If you use a paste food color instead of a liquid you'll get a deeper color without that weird chemical food color taste.

🧁 Holiday decorated cupcakes

Cupcakes are perfect for taking to holiday parties or sending to classroom parties at school. Decorating them can be as easy as adding holiday-themed sprinkles.

1. EggNog Latte are a mixture of coffee buttercream and an egg nog cupcake... delicious!
2. Cranberry Bliss just sounds like the perfect holiday flavor! Yellow cake is filled with cranberry sauce and topped with cream cheese buttercream.
3. Vanilla Candy Cane are vanilla cake with peppermint buttercream.
4. Santa's Hat Cupcakes are SO cute. Use any cupcake you like and follow the directions to make them look like Santa hats!
5. Christmas Lights Adorable cupcakes decorated with "strings" of m&ms Christmas lights.
6. Raspberry Champagne for a sparkly New Year's Eve drink made in cupcake form.
7. Grinch Cupcakes are absolutely irresistibly adorable!
8. Chocolate Christmas Trees would be fantastic for a dessert buffet!

🧁 Unique cupcake flavors

If you can imagine it someone has probably created it. Use these unique cupcake recipes as they are or as inspiration to come up with your own ideas!

1. Chubby Hubby  have all the flavor of your fav ice cream right in a cupcake.
2. Root Beer Float is one of my favorite treats and I love it just as much in cupcake form!
3. Malted Milk  are for you if you like malt! Chocolate malt cake with a vanilla malt buttercream!
4. Bomb Pop  copycats! SO cute for 4th of July, these have all the bomb pop color and flavor.
5. Pink Lemonade are just bursting with summery lemon flavor!
6. Earl Grey Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream I love the tea and I know I will love these, too!
7. Bailey's Chocolate might be my favorite. Bailey's and chocolate!
8. Cherry Coke Float is old fashioned flavor served up in a brand new way!!

🧁 Coconut cupcake recipes

Coconut gets it's own section because, well, coconut. I could do a round up of 50 best cupcake recipes and have them all this tropical flavor - I like them that much!

Expert Tip: Toasting coconut in the oven or microwave is easy and it adds extra flavor and texture. You can also substitute coconut milk (the thick kind in the can) for milk in the recipes to give them even more flavor.

1. Coconut Pie Cupcake are for you if you love coconut pie as much as I do! Filled with coconut mousse and topped with cream cheese whipped cream.
2. Samoas I love these cookies and looking at the cupcake version I'd say I'll love it just as much.
3. Coconut overload! These are made with coconut milk and coconut and more coconut!
4. Blackberry Coconut are SO pretty! The flavor combination is amazing but they are just as beautiful as they are delicious.

🧁 Vanilla cupcakes recipes

Ever heard the term plain vanilla? Well these cupcake recipes are anything but plain!

Expert Tip: If you really like lots of vanilla flavor you can substitute and equal amount of vanilla sugar for the sugar called for in any recipe.

Vanilla  pretty, moist, and delicious - really that's all you want in a cupcake, right?

French Vanilla have lots of vanilla flavor. Add the frosting of your choice.

Copycat Twinkies (with sponge cake, from scratch) really do taste like Twinkies. The secret is in the sponge cake!

One Bowl Vanilla means that they're easy to make, easy to clean up, and super easy to eat!

Cream Soda makes these easy cupcakes extra vanilla-y. Use red cream soda for pink cupcakes!

White Cupcakes (Wedding cake) - These are all purpose white cupcakes with cream cheese vanilla buttercream that are SO good. They work as well for winter holidays as they do for weddings and showers.

It's an amazing list of recipes, isn't it? Which are you going to try first?

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need. Don't forget that you can click on "add to collection" to save it to your own, private recipe box!

If you love this recipe please give it a 5 star rating. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📖 Recipe

First published August 2010. Last updated January 2021 to replace links and add more tips.