These Air Fryer Cupcakes are so easy to make, cook quickly and turn out perfectly fluffy, moist and delicious! A great way to bake a batch of cupcakes without ever turning on the oven. Add your favorite frosting and sprinkles and enjoy!
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Bake the BEST ever cupcakes in your air fryer following my easy air fryer cupcake recipe. They rise beautifully and evenly and taste amazing even without any frosting.
I don’t think I will ever go back to baking cupcakes in the oven, that’s how good these are!
CAN YOU BAKE CUPCAKES IN AN AIR FRYER?
Air Fryers can bake pretty much anything. I have made cakes, muffins, bread and even pavlova in my air fryer and I can’t wait to find out what else I can make in it!
Making cupcakes in an air fryer is so easy – no need to preheat the oven, safer for children to bake their own batch from scratch.
You don’t need any special cupcake pan to make them either. You can use paper cups, cupcake liners or silicone baking cups.
Air Fryer Vanilla Cupcakes Grocery List
These fluffy vanilla cupcakes use only six ingredients which I bet you already have in your pantry. They are delicious without any frosting but obviously you can add your favorite frosting and sprinkles.
- Self raising flour
- Sugar
- Butter or baking spread / margarine
- Milk
- Eggs
- Vanilla bean paste or extract
HOW TO MAKE AIR FRYER CUPCAKES
Full measurements and instructions can be found on the printable recipe card at the bottom of the page. Please take a look at the steps and video before attempting this recipe!
Measure all the ingredients into a mixing bowl. Beat together with an electric hand mixer until the batter is completely smooth. You might need to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula to make sure the ingredients are well combined.
Use a large cookie scoop to divide the batter between 8 large paper cup cases or a medium scoop if you are using smaller cupcake liners – you will have 10-12 cupcakes.
Place the cupcakes in the air fryer basket and bake at 160°C (325°F) for 23-25 minutes for large cupcakes and 18-20 for smaller ones. You do not need to preheat the air fryer for this recipe. I can fit up to nine large cupcakes in my Cosori but you can bake them in batches if needed.
Check the cupcakes are risen, golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. If they are not quite done yet you can add a couple of minutes to the cooking time.
Cool completely before adding any frosting. Store in a cake container for 2-3 days or wrap well and freeze(without any frosting).
HOW LONG DO I COOK CUPCAKES IN AN AIR FRYER?
Air Fryers can vary in their capacity and wattage so a little trial and error is required to determine the optimum cooking time of any air fryer recipe.
When making cupcakes the size of your cupcake cases will also affect the cooking time. If you bake the cupcakes in batches the second batch will bake quicker than the first so keep that in mind!
I prefer baking the cupcakes at a slightly lower temperature without preheating first to avoid them browning too quickly.
Air Fryer Cupcake Recipe Variations
This easy recipe makes the best vanilla cupcakes but you can easily tweak it to make different flavors. You can also use your favorite box mix of course but they are so quick to make from scratch.
- For chocolate cupcakes add two teaspoons of cocoa powder and add a tablespoon of coffee or milk to the batter.
- For lemon cupcakes add a tablespoon of lemon juice and the zest of one lemon.
Check out my other Air Fryer baking recipes!
HAVE YOU MADE MY AIR FRYER CUPCAKE RECIPE? Please leave a rating, post a photo on my Facebook page, share it on Instagram, or save it to Pinterest with the tag #supergoldenbakes and make my day!
Air Fryer Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 250 g (2 cups) flour self raising flour
- 250 g ( 1 ¼ cup) caster sugar (superfine sugar)
- 115 g (½ cup) margarine or use softened unsalted butter
- 2 large eggs
- 120 ml (½ cup) milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
Simple Vanilla Frosting
- 260 g (2 cups) icing sugar (powdered sugar)
- 115 g (½ cup) unsalted butter softened
- 80 ml (⅓ cup) cream double / heavy
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
Instructions
- Measure all the ingredients into a mixing bowl. Beat together with an electric hand mixer until the batter is completely smooth. You might need to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula to make sure the ingredients are well combined.
- Use a large cookie scoop to divide the batter between 8 large paper cup cases or a medium scoop if you are using smaller cupcake liners – you will have 10-12 cupcakes.
- Place the cupcakes in the air fryer basket and bake at 160°C (325°F) for 23-25 minutes for large cupcakes and 18-20 for smaller ones. You do not need to preheat the air fryer for this recipe.
- Check the cupcakes are risen, golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. If they are not quite done yet you can add a couple of minutes to the cooking time. Store in a cake container for 2-3 days or wrap well and freeze(without any frosting).
- Put all the frosting in a mixing bowl and whisk on a low speed setting to combine the ingredients. Increase the speed to medium -high and beat until frosting holds peaks. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip.
- Pipe a generous swirl of frosting over the cupcakes add sprinkles and enjoy!
Notes
- If your are using plain flour then add two teaspoons of baking powder.
- Don’t overfill the paper cases.
- To make the strawberry frosting in the photos add 2-3 teaspoons of freeze-dried strawberry powder to the basic vanilla frosting.
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