Vanilla Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting (2024)

A fantastic vanilla cupcake paired with raspberry jam and topped with a perfectly pipeable cream cheese frosting. These Raspberry Vanilla Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting are going to blow you away! Don’t miss all my cupcake recipes and desserts!

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

I chose this specific recipe for its simplicity and depth of flavor. If you love vanilla (and I do) this cupcake is the one to make. The texture is similar to that of a muffin, but the flavor is pure vanilla goodness. There are only 7 ingredients in this vanilla cupcake recipe, so you want to make sure you are using the best quality products you can find. I know I reach for my McCormick Pure Vanilla Extract when I want a reliable, consistent, and perfectly formulatedvanilla extract!

I recently attended an event hosted by McCormick that was a pure flavor extravaganza. We were allowed to taste test between McCormick vanilla and a leading competitor.

A noticeable difference was the aroma. McCormick’s had a strong Bourbon smell while the competitor almost smelled like plastic. Like Play-Doh!

The color was different… the competitor was murky and cloudy while McCormick’s was purely dark and rich.

Then most importantly, the taste! The competitor was overly sweet and lacked depth. McCormick’s flavor had beautiful vanilla tones that almost tasted carmelized and was perfectly sweet. It was shocking, to say the least!

It’s safe to say that after a day of knowledge I am obsessed with the pure flavor that is McCormick’s Pure Vanilla Extract!

Raspberry Vanilla Cupcakes

When testing this recipe I knew I wanted the vanilla to be the star. To make that happen I needed to come up with a contrasting flavor that complimented the cupcake beautifully, and that was achieved by adding raspberry jam. I chose a seedless jam for the surprise inside filling simply because I love the texture and the idea of each bite melting in your mouth. You could make your own raspberry filling from scratch or opt for a seeded jam if you prefer!

Pipeable Cream Cheese Frosting

This cream cheese frosting is sweet. So wonderfully sweet! But it also has undertones of bourbon and vanilla thanks to the addition of the McCormick’s Pure Vanilla Extract.

I also wanted to pipe the frosting, so I added more confectioner’s sugar than I normally would. This made the addition of the extract very important! If you don’t mind a rustic looking cupcake you can add half the amount of sugar to the Cream Cheese Frosting recipe listed below. It will not be pipeable, but it will be delicious.