Air Fryer Cupcakes

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 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.

Here’s What You Will Need

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 (self-rising flour)
• Sugar – superfine sugar (a.k.a caster sugar) is preferable when baking
• Unsalted butter or a baking spread / margarine at room temperature
• Milk – you can use most types of milk, including plant-based
• Eggs – always use eggs at room temperature otherwise your batter may look split or curdled
• Vanilla bean paste or extract

How to Make Air Fryer Cupcakes

↓ For the full ingredients and detailed method, jump to the recipe card.

1. 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.
2. 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.

1. Place the cupcakes in the air fryer basket and bake at 320°F (160°C) 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.

1. 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.
2. Cool the cupcakes on a wire rack before adding any frosting. Store in a cake container for 2-3 days or wrap well and freeze(without any frosting).

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. Rubbing the citrus zest into the sugar using your fingertips will release the aromatic citrus oil in the zest and impart the best flavor.

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 – adjust the baking time accordingly.

Yes. If you don’t have an air fryer, you can bake the cupcakes in a preheated oven at 350°F (180°C) until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Baking time will vary depending on the size of your cupcake cases – usually 18–20 minutes.

You might also like my Air Fryer Chocolate Cupcakes.