These are the best moist vanilla muffins! These soft and fluffy homemade muffins have sky high muffin tops. They're made in one bowl and you don't need a mixer. Plus, you can easily add mix-ins to this recipe!
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Sometimes, simple is better! These classic fluffy vanilla muffins are made with simple pantry ingredients, and you can make them in just one bowl.
They have a crispy top and are so moist inside. Plus, this is a great basic vanilla muffin recipe where you can easily add mix-ins.
If you're looking for less of a simple vibe and you're a 'more is better!' person, you gotta check out my buttermilk blueberry muffins, bakery-style chocolate chip muffins, cinnamon swirl muffins and raspberry white chocolate muffins.
Why I can't get enough of this recipe!
- One Bowl: You can make this whole recipe in just one bowl with a whisk and rubber spatula. No extra cleanup!
- Oil-Based: After a lot of testing, I've found that using a mixture of oil and buttermilk gives you the softest and fluffiest muffins.
- Sky-High Muffin Tops: I have a bunch of tips and tricks to help you get that bakery style look!
- Easily Customized: These vanilla muffins are perfect on their own, but you can also add a vanilla glaze or mix-ins like fruit or chocolate chips.
Ingredients Needed
- Flour: I've only tested this recipe with all-purpose flour.
- Buttermilk: I don't recommend swapping it out for regular milk. Buttermilk is not only important for the texture, but it also reacts with the baking soda to give more rise to the muffin tops.
- Oil: make sure you use a neutral oil like vegetable oil, canola oil or sunflower oil. We don't want anything with a strong taste or smell.
- Vanilla Extract: Because these are vanilla muffins, make sure you use a high-quality vanilla extract - it makes all the difference, I swear!
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Muffin Variations
- Fruit: add up to 1 ½ cups of fresh or frozen blueberries or raspberries.
- Baking Chips: add up to a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips or mini chocolate chips.
- Nuts: add up to a cup of chopped pecans or walnuts.
- Jumbo: Want to make jumbo muffins? Use the same recipe but bake in a jumbo muffin pan for 5 minutes at 425 ℉, then 350℉ for 25-27 minutes.
Step by Step Instructions
Step 1: In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, sugar, buttermilk and vanilla extract for 1 minute.
Step 2: Add in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Use a rubber spatula to mix until just combined.
Step 3: Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour. This will help activate the baking powder and baking soda, giving you taller muffins.
Step 4: Preheat your oven to 425°F/218°C and line a muffin pan with muffin liners, only lining every other well in the pan. I recommend greasing around the sides of the liners so the muffin tops don't stick to the pan. Gently scoop out the muffin batter using an ice cream scoop so each liner is full to the top. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes, then without opening the oven door, lower the temperature to 350°F/175°C and bake for an additional 18-22 minutes. Let cool for 5-10 minutes in the pan before removing to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Expert Tips & Tricks
- Weighing Ingredients: I highly recommend weighing your ingredients instead of using cup measurements, as it is the most accurate way to bake. It's really easy to add too much flour - too much flour = dry, sad muffins!
- Sparkling Sugar: If you want the muffin tops to sparkle ✨, sprinkle some granulated sugar or sparkling sugar over each muffin before baking!
- Filling to the Top: Make sure you fill the muffin liners to the very top, this is going to give you tall muffins!
- Resting Time: I don't recommend skipping the 1 hour rest period, this is going to activate the leaveners and will give you much taller muffins.
- Lining Every Other Well: By lining every other cavity in the muffin pan, you're giving the muffins more space to grow sky-high tops.
Storage & Freezing
Store the baked and cooled muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.
Freeze the muffins by placing them in an airtight container or freezer safe ziploc bag. When ready to eat, defrost in the fridge and enjoy once thawed.
Try these breakfast and brunch-related recipes next!
Made This Recipe?
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Thank you!
Ella
Recipe
Vanilla Muffins
Equipment
- 1x Muffin pan
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (227 ml) buttermilk room temperature
- 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (100 ml) neutral oil
- 3 cups (360 cups) all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the oil, buttermilk, sugar, and vanilla extract.2 large eggs, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, 1 cup (227 ml) buttermilk, 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar, ½ cup (100 ml) neutral oil
- Add in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir together until just combined with a rubber spatula.3 cups (360 cups) all-purpose flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour. This will give the batter time to activate the leaveners, giving you taller muffins.
- While resting the batter, preheat the oven to 425°Fahrenheit/218°Celsius. Line a muffin pan with muffin liners, only lining every other well. You will need 2 muffin pans to do this or just make them 6 at a time.
- After an hour, gently scoop out the muffin batter into the liners so they're completely full. If you wish, sprinkle some sparkling sugar on top.
- Bake the muffins for 5 minutes, then without opening the oven, turn the heat down to 350°Fahrenheit/175°Celsius and bake for another 18-20 minutes.
- Let the muffins cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
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Aly says
Thank you for this recipe! :D. For those looking to veganize this recipe, I did so easily and it turned out nicely. My yield was 11 muffins. I used tulip style liners and filled them generously as indicated. I weighed the imperially measured ingredients when relevant to check my conversion against the recipe's. I had beautiful rise on all of the muffins, including the ones that I added mini chocolate chips to the batter and on top. All muffins were topped with large sugar crystals. The recipe yielded a bouncy, soft cake with beautiful rise but I would have liked it to be a bit sweeter. The sugar crystals almost addressed that but it was definitely closer to a cornbread flavor as opposed to the sweeter, slightly cakier muffin that I'm on the hunt for. I'm looking forward to playing with this recipe more.
My changes ultimately were:
INGREDIENT CHANGES
-------------------------------
INSTEAD OF EGGS: 2 Bob's Red Mill egg replacer + 2 tbsp oil in the mix in addition to the required water
FLOUR: 420 g AP flour (my weighed cups of sifted flour averaged 140 g/c not the 120g/c used in the recipe)
BUTTERMILK: 1.25 c soy milk + 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
IN ADDITION TO VANILLA: 1 tsp artificial vanilla flavor + 1/4 tsp almond extract (to achieve more of a funfetti style vanilla flavor)
I also added 1/4 c mini chocolate chips to the batter equivalent of 3 muffins and still achieved a beautifully high rise of those muffins.
METHOD CHANGES
---------------------------
ASSEMBLY: I used a two bowl method as opposed to the one bowl method indicated. I used one bowl to combine/whisk all dry ingredients besides the sugar. I used a second for the wet ingredients + sugar and then combined the two.
REST: 25 minute rest of batter as opposed to 1 hr stated in the recipe due to time constraints. I also immediately scooped into the batter into tulip style muffin liners after mixing and let the batter undergo its rest in the muffin tins as opposed to resting in the bowl then scooping into the tin after as stated in the recipe.
TIME: My oven tends to retain heat very well so I only needed to bake for an additional 15 minutes at 350* after the initial 5 minutes at 425*. Next time I will try 14 minutes.
WHY I MADE CERTAIN CHANGES
When I weighed my sifted flour the 3 cups were greater than the stated 360 grams in the metric version of the recipe (averaging 140 g/cup as opposed to the 120 g in this recipe) so I added a tiny bit more liquid to compensate after consulting the recipe video to ensure I was achieving a similar viscosity. Also, 1/2 c oil corresponded to 125 mL in my pyrex measuring cup as opposed to the stated 100 mL in the metric version of the recipe so I went with the 125 mL since I assumed the recipe was first developed in imperial before converting and testing in metric and so the 1/2 c would be the more accurate liquid measurement. The batter also clearly would have been too dry using 100 mL of oil as opposed to the 125 mL.
FURTHER CHANGES + EXPERIMENTS
------------------------------------------------
-Increase sweetness by testing different sugar amounts; maybe testing with brown sugar to improve flavor.
-Use vanilla bean paste instead of extract + increase the amount of that and accompanying artificial vanilla flavor and almond extract.
-Rub lemon zest with sugar before proceeding with the methods indicated in my notes above.
I would love to test this recipe with a both classic streusal topping and a peanut butter streusel variation (to attempt a sort of pb cup filling inspired muffin). I would also love to try it with some jam, lemon curd, or frangipane swirled through. I'll also give a funfetti version with sprinkles a go.
Definitely looking forward to playing around with this recipe further. Thank you again and happy baking! 😀
Sherry Oakes says
Oh, my. Such perfection. Beautiful and delicious. Hubby loved them.❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Ella says
Yay! So happy you liked the recipe!
Majiedah says
It came out great!! My daughters love it as I mix half with funfetti sprinkles & another half with raspberry jam. I baked another half recipe this morning as they request again!! Thanks!
Ella says
Thank you so much for your review Majiedah! I love the idea of sprinkles and jam!
Tiffany says
These are great muffins. Really moist and fluffy. I'll definitely be making again. I cut the center out and filled them with strawberry rhubarb jam, adding the tops back on, everyone loved them on their own and filled.
Ella says
Thanks for your review! Wow, strawberry rhubarb jam in the middle sounds so good! I need to try that!