Do you remember last week when I shared with you secrets from the world of cupcake bakeries? Well, this week I’m back… spilling secrets wasn’t quite enough. How could I share so much about cupcakes and not tell you how to make them?! Now, I’m giving you the best when it comes to cupcake recipes and frosting recipes, because you cannot miss this.

Last week, I told you that most of the time, the secret to cupcake shops making a ton of different kinds of cupcakes easily is that they only really make 2-3 flavors of cupcakes and vary the frosting recipe on each one to make awesome varieties for their store. The best starting place is to have one really solid chocolate cake recipe, and a really solid vanilla recipe. To me, there’s really only one option when it comes to a great chocolate cake or vanilla cake recipe, and that’s what’s called a “White Almond Sour Cream Cake.” If you love wedding cake, this is the cupcake recipe to go with.

If you make it according to the directions I’ve listed, and use an ice cream scoop to measure it out, you’ll get roughly 40 cupcakes, and trust me, they’ll be so good your friends and family will be begging for more.

White Almond Sour Cream Cupcakes

1 box vanilla, white, or butter recipe vanilla cake mix
1 Cup flour
1 Cup granulated sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/3 Cup water
1/8 Cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 Cup sour cream
4 egg whites

In one bowl, you’ll sift together your cake mix, flour, sugar, and salt. Use a separate bowl to combine your water, vegetable oil, extracts, and egg whites. Slowly add your powder to your liquid, beating carefully, then fold in sour cream. You’ll bake these in a 325 degree oven until the cupcake tests done with a toothpick or springs back at a soft touch. I found that these took about 12 minutes to test done at 325.

Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes

1 box milk chocolate, dark chocolate, devil’s food, or butter recipe chocolate cake mix
1 Cup flour
1 Cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 Cup water
1/8 Cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 Cup sour cream
3 whole eggs

To prepare chocolate cupcakes, sift the cake mix, flour, sugar, and salt together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine water, vegetable oil, extracts, and eggs. Beat the dry mixture into the liquid carefully, then fold in sour cream. Bake at 325 until cupcakes test done, approximately 12 minutes.

After you’ve prepared your cake mixes, it’s time to get ready for frosting! When I made my cupcakes, I prepared the following flavors: two-tone vanilla, fluffy chocolate, peanut butter, cookies and cream, lemon and mint. When it comes to frostings, many frosting recipes are just a slight variation on either a classic vanilla buttercream or a classic chocolate buttercream. I’m sharing the classic frosting recipes and their variations below:

Classic Vanilla Buttercream

For a classic vanilla buttercream, you’ll want to make sure your bowl, beaters, and spoon are chilled slightly.

1/2 Cup butter, softened at room temperature
3-4 Cups powdered sugar (or more, as needed)
1/4 Cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Start by creaming butter using beaters until the butter is lighter in color and fluffy. Slowly add 2 cups of powdered sugar to the mixture. Add milk and vanilla while beating, then add in the remaining powdered sugar until the frosting reaches proper consistency (if you’ve eaten a cupcake, you’ll recognize proper consistency, I promise!) Add in slightly more powdered sugar if you intend to add food coloring. For two-tone cupcakes, I separated the frosting and added Wilton gel food coloring until I reached my desired color. Chill frosting until ready to frost cupcakes or it may wilt.

Cookies and Cream Frosting

For the perfect cookies and cream frosting, you’re going to start with a really good vanilla buttercream, as shown above. From there, you’ll crush about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of Oreo cookies and fold them in, leaving a few larger chunks. This frosting works best piped through a large opening in a bag or simply spooned on– a smaller frosting tip will clog.

Mint Frosting

Replace the vanilla extract in vanilla buttercream with spearmint extract. Add green food coloring as desired to indicate mint flavor. Top with an Andes mint or other mint candy for some fun decoration.

Lemon Frosting

Replace the vanilla extract in vanilla buttercream with lemon extract to taste. Tint slightly yellow if desired, and pipe onto a vanilla or lemon cupcake.

Classic Fluffy Chocolate Buttercream

The chocolate is where we start to see some variation from that classic vanilla frosting recipe. I’ve found chocolate buttercreams to be the most “foolproof.” A vanilla buttercream breaks much more easily than vanilla, and to be honest, I’m not really sure why it’s so much more troublesome than the chocolate variety, but if you’re a bit shy when it comes to frosting, definitely start with chocolate and work your way up.

3/4 Cup butter, softened at room temperature
1/2 Cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 Cups powdered sugar
1/4 Cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter using beaters or a mixer until it has lightened in color and is fluffy. Slowly add in cocoa powder and 1 cup of powdered sugar. Add in milk and vanilla, then add in the remaining powdered sugar until frosting has reached the desired consistency. Chill until you’re ready to frost your cupcakes.

Peanut Butter Frosting

Prepare frosting as stated above for the Chocolate Buttercream Recipe, but replace the cocoa powder with a powdered peanut butter such as PB2.

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You can optionally use the tutorial shared in last week’s secrets of the cupcake world post to do a chocolate-peanut butter swirl. It’s arguably my favorite cupcake ever.

There you have it– more cupcakes and frosting than you’ll ever need. I do want to note that the cupcake recipe does scale very well. Trying to make 75 cupcakes? Double it. Want to make 150 cupcakes? Quadruple it. It’s just one of those recipes that you can easily scale to as large as you need. It would be hard to scale it down unless you just so happened to have half a box of cake mix on hand, but it is do-able. Your best bet if you want less than about 35-40 cupcakes? Make some, then pawn the rest off on friends and neighbors!

Still on a cupcake kick? Try out these Take 5 Cupcakes I shared last October or these delicious Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes! Or, if you want the perfect red velvet recipe for your event, flip this Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet recipe into a cupcake with homemade Ermine frosting!