Help - tried and loved cake recipe suddenly gone awry!

[thecoffeesnob]

Hi all,

So I made these vanilla cupcakes a year ago and they turned out just perfect; light, fluffy and quite possible the best cupcakes I've ever made.

Fast forward to last week, I made them again for a gift, thinking I had a sure winner on my hands. For some odd reason, this time, my cupcakes had butter bubbling out from the side and top. And although they had risen in the oven, they turned out really dense.

Frustrated, I tried again, changing the brand of butter I used and checking to see if my baking powder had lost its effectiveness (it hasn't) and viola, I got the exact same results; tasty but really dense cupcakes.

I'm pretty sure I'm not doing anything different this time- I cream the butter and sugars till light and cream, use eggs that are at room temperature and fold in the flour till just incorporated- and I've checked the recipe a million times to make sure I copied it right so I, for the life of me, can't figure out what on earth is going on.

I have typed out the recipe below and would be so grateful if anyone can shed some light on this. I'm just tearing my hair out of frustration right now.

Thank you so much in advance!

Vanilla cupcakes

130g butter, slightly softened

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

3 eggs, at room temperate

Splash of vanilla

1 1/4 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1/4 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 175. Line a cupcake pan with liners and set aside.
2. Cream the butter till fluffy. Add the sugars and cream till light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Fold half the flour mixture in, followed by the milk. Fold the remaining half of the flour mixture in until just incorporated.
4. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared pan. Bake in the centre of the oven for 20-25 minutes or till skewer inserted in the middle comes out with dry crumbs clinging.

[Katie Meadow]

I can't believe I'm responding to a baking query, since I'm at the top of the list of inept bakers, but isn't 175 degrees a tad low for baking cupcakes?

[MelissaH]

175 degrees Celsius is about 350 degrees Fahrenheit. So no, 175 isn't low if you're metric.

[Special K]

Some wild guesses:

Did you use larger (or smaller) eggs?

Or, maybe this time you used low fat vs full fat milk or vice versa?

Salted vs unsalted butter?

K

edited to move a misplaced parenthesis

Edited September 11, 2013 by Special K (log)

[Lisa Shock]

First thing I see is volume measurement of dry ingredients, most importantly the flour. A 'cup' of flour can wind up being anything from about 3.5 oz to about 6 oz, with an average at just over 5 oz. On day one class, I have pastry student measure a cup of flour then weigh it. no one gets the same amount. Then, I have them do it again, and, no one gets the same amount they had before. This sort of variation can drastically affect the outcome of a cake, and is why professional recipes use weight-based measurement for dry ingredients. Your issue sounds like the usual roulette everyone plays when they don't weigh the dry ingredients -you may have added as much as twice as much flour the first time around.

On a related note, there's no standards organization checking home-user measuring devices. This means that if you purchase several 'cups' at your local kitchen shop or mass merchant, they can give different measurements from each other. Have you switched the brand/type of measuring cup?

And, lastly, is there any chance that you have mistaken some white whole wheat flour for the 'plain' flour?

[quiet1]

My first guess would be a measurement issue - the amount of flour in a cup, for example, can change a lot depending on how it's put into the measuring cup and how fluffy/compressed the flour is. Likewise, with the brown sugar - what does lightly packed actually mean? Are you always lightly packing the same amount?

Try to think back to see if you did anything differently when measuring out the ingredients, or as pointed out if your egg size changed or something.

[annabelle]

Are you baking these cupcakes in the same kind of pan, ideally the pan you used when you first made the successful batch?

I have never baked with the silicone baking pans that have been available for some time, but have heard that they can give uneven results.

[Lisa Shock]

Annabelle is correct, silicone is an insulator and gives really weird results with cake -usually the top will be done/overdone while the bottoms are still uncooked.

[annabelle]

Thanks Lisa! Now I am for a certainty never going to buy any.

[quiet1]

Thanks Lisa! Now I am for a certainty never going to buy any.

Hey, they work wonderfully! I just don't use them for baking in.

They're very useful for freezing stuff, because you can pop whatever it is out of the cup once it's frozen with no trouble at all, and then put all the little frozen 'pucks' in one bag to keep them together and free up your pan for other things. I sometimes have used them for leftover fruit purees or leftover frosting - then I use those leftovers later to dress up something like a purchased cake or cookies if I feel like a sweet treat but don't want to take the time to bake something myself.

I also find the individual ones helpful for holding colored sugars and similar small decorations like you might use for decorating holiday cookies - because they're flexible you can pinch them to make a directed funnel shape for sprinkling stuff, or you can get your fingers in easily to pick things up.

(Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever actually baked with mine...)

[pastrygirl]

3 eggs seems like too many compared to the rest of the ingredients. Could it have been only yolks? Where did you find the original recipe?

[djyee100]

Are you confident that your oven is working properly & holding the correct temp?

This recipe is so simple, it's hard to figure out what is wrong. I suggest you do a chart of each ingredient, Then and Now, and note any changes of brands or measuring methods/implements for each ingredient. That's the only thing I can suggest.

[thecoffeesnob]

Oh wow, thank you so much for your responses!

Special K: Difference in egg sizes might be a possibility since I have to confess that I don't always weigh my eggs before baking with them.

Lisa Shock: Yeap, I totally get you. I'm not a fan of using recipes with volume measurements for that reason (plus there's so much additional washing up to do!). Now that you've mentioned it, I have actually changed my set of measuring cups from an old plastic set my mum used to use to shiny new gorgeous stainless steel ones from Crate & Barrel. I have made several recipes I've made with the old set using the new ones and haven't had a problem so far but that definitely could be a factor.

Quiet1: I always spoon my flour into the measuring cup and lightly level it out with a spatula. I do the same with the brown sugar, except I press it in slightly before leveling it out. Volume measurements are so vexing!

Annebelle: That's a really good point I've never thought about but I've always used metal baking tins. Silicon kinda scares me with how plasticy they feel plus I'm really iffy about how they would hold out in the oven at such high temperatures and if they release any chemicals. Most certainly never gonna bake with one after what Lisa Shock said about the weird textures.

Pastrygirl: Nup, I checked the recipe against the source (Carole Bloom's The Essential Baker); it does say 6 whole eggs (I halved the recipe). Compared it too against other cupcake recipes I have. Most of them use fewer eggs but more egg so I guess that might sort of even it out?

Djyee100: Nope, not really to be honest. I usually set my oven at about 10 degrees lower than stipulated coz it tends to run a little hot.

Again, thank you, guys, so much for all your help!

I'm gonna have a friend try the same recipe out to see if it's me or the recipe then try it one last time, this time making sure I really cream the butter and sugars properly and weighing my eggs, before I can let this go. Will keep you guys posted.

[annabelle]

You're very welcome! You say you halved the recipe? Originally or just this time?

That could be the culprit. Make the whole recipe and I'll bet they turn out just right.

[quiet1]

You're very welcome! You say you halved the recipe? Originally or just this time?

That could be the culprit. Make the whole recipe and I'll bet they turn out just right.

This was my thought also, if that changed. Baking can be finicky about recipe sizing. I have some recipes where I just make the whole batch even if I only want part of it, and just freeze the extras or come up with an excuse to give them away, because they just don't work properly doing a partial batch. (I'm sure I could tweak the recipe to make it work in a smaller batch, adjusting the ratios of ingredients and leavening, but that's more work than just making a full batch and giving my mom some to take into work and leave in the break room.)

[annabelle]

That's usually what I do, too. One of Ina Garten's cupcake recipes makes two dozen cupcakes. They are fantastic, but that is way too many cupcakes for us to eat before they get stale or spoil. I give the rest of them away and share the wealth.

[thecoffeesnob]

I halved the recipe the first time I made it as well. I always wing it and halve recipes, especially when I make little 7" cakes for birthday celebration, and - touch wood- they haven't worked out weird for me yet.

Anyway just a quick update- my friend tried the same recipe over the weekend and her cupcakes turned out exactly the way they did the first time I made them. So it's definitely me, not the recipe.

I've racked my brains all weekend, recalling every step and I think it could be the butter I used. I usually beat the butter cold right out of the fridge- it's really hot and humid where I am- till it warms up slightly before adding the sugar. And I remember it being pretty much liquid by the time I was done creaming it with the sugar the last time I made them.

Will try it again, this time with another brand of butter and perhaps the air conditioning on, when i can look at a cupcake again. At least now I know it's definitely me. Can't wait to get this right!

[quiet1]

I halved the recipe the first time I made it as well. I always wing it and halve recipes, especially when I make little 7" cakes for birthday celebration, and - touch wood- they haven't worked out weird for me yet.

Anyway just a quick update- my friend tried the same recipe over the weekend and her cupcakes turned out exactly the way they did the first time I made them. So it's definitely me, not the recipe.

I've racked my brains all weekend, recalling every step and I think it could be the butter I used. I usually beat the butter cold right out of the fridge- it's really hot and humid where I am- till it warms up slightly before adding the sugar. And I remember it being pretty much liquid by the time I was done creaming it with the sugar the last time I made them.

Will try it again, this time with another brand of butter and perhaps the air conditioning on, when i can look at a cupcake again. At least now I know it's definitely me. Can't wait to get this right!

That sounds very plausible. You get very different results from a creamy fluffy butter mixture compared to something that calls for melted butter to be combined with the sugar - my brain is not functioning on all cylinders today, but I think it's because the thicker butter mixture holds together well enough to trap some air, while obviously the melted butter doesn't really have the structure (for lack of a better word) to do so.

For recipes which call for creaming butter, I usually leave it out just until a stick of it would be a bit flexible, but not squishy. (Scientific term, that. ) So if you were to cream it with the sugar by hand, you'd get a fairly good arm work out at first because it's still got quite a lot of solid-butter-body to it.