Cupcakes: Recipes & Decorating

[celenes]

Oh yes I'm still around just haven't had time to post or read as much as I would like because business is going well but I couldn't resist this topic because I have found here in Ohio cupcakes are quite popular. I just did several dozen on Friday for customers.

I created a cassata cupcake which is simply pudding filling with pineapple topped with a whipped frosting and finished with a strawberry.

My other popular cupcake is a chocolate cupcake with german chocolate filling then topped with a thin layer of chocolate ganache and finished with a chocolate cream cheese frosting. Yummmm I call this the "It's Friday" cupcake

Edited January 29, 2006 by celenes (log)

[whisks]

thanks for that - i'll give it a try. somehow tho, i suspect that i have made "full" cupcakes as well, but didn't pay full attention to the paper problem. have to now line up an opportunity to make them.

thanks again

[ablosh]

Chocolate Cupcakes

Checkered with Chocolate Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache

[tmgrobyn]

I wanted to try something different Friday at the shop. I came across three lonely spice cupcakes that had been ignored when frosting the others earlier in the day. So I took about a cup and a half of our regular buttercream frosting and added two teaspoons of ground ginger to it. Mixed it up and frosted the cupcakes. Then I added a small sprig of candied orange peel for decoration. One customer came in tried one, and bought the other two. Couldn't say enough about them. So I guess my whim was okay. No pics though.

[rachel!]

I know the recipe for the Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Filling was posted to this thread quite some time ago -- I hope I'm not breaking etiquette bringing up the topic again, but I've just baked a batch tonight and was wondering if anyone might have any insights on why mine fell in the center. To my very, very inexperienced eye it looks like the cream cheese center bits weighted the middle down, rather than baking up, and the chocolate cakey part didn't really bake up around it (well, except insofar as the sides are taller than the middle, so obviously baked up some). I'm explaining it badly, but basically...the middles fell.

I made them as treats for my sister's birthday, which is this Thursday (I plan to freeze and then thaw them, having read here that it generally improves all cakes), so I halved the recipe because she only has a few coworkers. I have a brand new kitchen scale, so weighed the flour after measuring it -- I came up with 192g (for the 1.5 cups). I used Gold Medal AP - just bought it tonight. My baking soda is also a recent purchase.

I wound up with 2 dozen smallish cupcakes -- some of them reached just to the top of the muffin pan, and some were a bit below, so I may have underfilled them? I may have underbaked them a little as well, since I was paranoid about overbaking them. Could that have made them fall? I did the filling with half full-fat cream cheese and half reduced-fat -- I have no clue what that might've done, if anything. I did let the cream cheese and the egg sit out at room temp for quite a while, but they may have still been a little cool -- again, I don't know if that would give them the dipped-in centers. I omitted the nuts entirely, but otherwise made the recipe as stated (well, halved). And those are all my best guesses on where I went wrong. I do have an oven thermometer and my oven was right at 350.

Lastly (sorry this is so long already!), does anyone have suggestions for an easy frosting/topping for these to help hide the sinkyness? I don't have any fancy baking anything -- I do have an immersion blender, but I don't have a stand mixer or a hand-held mixer. And I've never made any sort of frosting before. I was thinking of the fudgey topping mentioned upthread that was a mix of chocolate and evaporated milk (14oz chocolate to a can of evaporated milk) -- would it be too rich for an already decadent cupcake?

Thanks so much for any insights or suggestions!!

[Jujubee]

I know the recipe for the Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Filling was posted to this thread quite some time ago -- I hope I'm not breaking etiquette bringing up the topic again, but I've just baked a batch tonight and was wondering if anyone might have any insights on why mine fell in the center.  To my very, very inexperienced eye it looks like the cream cheese center bits weighted the middle down, rather than baking up, and the chocolate cakey part didn't really bake up around it (well, except insofar as the sides are taller than the middle, so obviously baked up some).  I'm explaining it badly, but basically...the middles fell.

←

This is a different recipe than the one you followed, but in this picture the cream cheese part is a little sunken. Maybe this type of cupcake is meant to sink a little in the middle? Is this what yours looked like?

http://www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/coo...ck_bottoms.html

[ruthcooks]

A similar recipe is an old favorite of mine: it calls for reserving some of the chocolate batter and placing a teaspoon or so over the cream cheese filling. (Also, mine are topped with a sprinkling of sugar and some slivered almonds.)

I think your chocolate batter is rising around the edges of the cheese so this tip might help.

[anvi]

These chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese filling are my old potluck standby. they are fudgey and creamy, not too sweet and can be in the oven in less than a half hour. They are actually better when made a day ahead to allow the flavor of the cocoa to develop. Not at all elegant or sophisticated, but everyone loves them! This makes a lot of cupcakes, so you might want to halve the recipe, or make all of them and freeze half.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Filling

For Chocolate Cake:

3 cups flour

2/3 cup cocoa

2 tsp baking soda

2 cups sugar

1 tsp salt

2 cups cold water

1/2 cup + 2 Tbs veg. oil

1 Tbs vanilla

2 Tbs white vinegar

mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In another bowl mix all the liquid ingredients. pour the wet into the dry and whisk until smooth - don't worry about overmixing. Batter will be quite liquid.

For Filling

12 oz cream cheese - room temp

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1-1/4 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cups chopped, toasted walnuts

Beat together the cream cheese, eggs and sugar. stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts.

Put paper liners in muffin tins. fill each about 1/2 to 2/3 full of batter. Top with a generous 1 Tbs blob of filling. no need to push the filling down or put more batter on top, as the batter will bake up around it and there will just be a bit of the cream cheese showing on top of the baked cupcake.

←

Hi,

I was planning to try these cupcakes but than i noticed that there were no eggs in the recipe for the cupcakes.there are eggs in the filling but not in the cakes itself.Is this OK?

i know you guys are all experts ,so please pardon me for the dumb question!!

←

Ruth,

Could you please let me know if this recipe calls for eggs ?i did not see any eggs being used for the cupcakes and have been wondering ever since.I did not get my query resolved earlier and am hoping that you will be able to help me here.

I wanted to try these but did not do so on acct of the egg question and did not want to end up with a failure.Once again,i am a baking novice,so please pardon my dumb question

Anvi

[rachel!]

I know the recipe for the Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Filling was posted to this thread quite some time ago -- I hope I'm not breaking etiquette bringing up the topic again, but I've just baked a batch tonight and was wondering if anyone might have any insights on why mine fell in the center.  To my very, very inexperienced eye it looks like the cream cheese center bits weighted the middle down, rather than baking up, and the chocolate cakey part didn't really bake up around it (well, except insofar as the sides are taller than the middle, so obviously baked up some).  I'm explaining it badly, but basically...the middles fell.

←

This is a different recipe than the one you followed, but in this picture the cream cheese part is a little sunken. Maybe this type of cupcake is meant to sink a little in the middle? Is this what yours looked like?

http://www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/coo...ck_bottoms.html

←

Mine aren't that pretty, but they do look sort of like that. I think I did underfill them -- they came just to the top of the papers, so they didn't bake over the edges of the cups and form that cupcakey ridge -- the mushroomish shape. Also, I didn't have that much of the center showing on mine -- to some extent the filling did sink into the rest of the batter, which came up over it a bit.

I think the suggestion to reserve some of the chocolate part to cover it would probably help with the sinking, though I also think you may be right about this style just looking that way. There's something appealing about a bit of the cream showing, so people know they're getting a filled cupcake.

Anvi - The recipe Jujubee linked to is extremely similar to the one upthread -- there are no eggs called for in the cake part, just in the filling. Though I underfilled my cups (and may have overbaked them, despite earlier suspecting I underbaked them -- oi this whole baking thing is complicated) I still think they have a good flavor. Being a complete novice myself I have no clue what eggs do or don't do as a component of baking recipes, but I can say that no one would mistake mine for anything other than cupcakes. I'd say go for the recipe as written.

Edited February 14, 2006 by rachel! (log)

[ruthcooks]

My recipe is about half of the one above: 1 1/2 cups flour and 1 cup sugar, etc. for a dozen cupcakes. The filling calls for 3 ounces cream cheese, 1 egg yolk and 1 egg in the filling, and the other egg white is in the cake mixture. Perhaps there is just too much filling in the above recipe, and the weight of it simply bears down on the cake batter so the cake takes the path of least resistance.

Oops, I also had a senior moment! This recipe does not call for placing a spoon of batter on top, that must have been in another recipe.

I'm posting the recipe on RecipeGullet.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

Edited February 15, 2006 by ruthcooks (log)

[tejon]

How do you all transport cupcakes? I just made up two dozen to take to my son's preschool (nothing special, so no pictures), and ended up taking them in the baking trays so they wouldn't fall over in the car on the way over. Any better ideas?

[sanrensho]

How do you all transport cupcakes? I just made up two dozen to take to my son's preschool (nothing special, so no pictures), and ended up taking them in the baking trays so they wouldn't fall over in the car on the way over. Any better ideas?

←

Michael's sells a plastic cupcake tray holder that doubles as sheet cake holder. Tupperware also has one.

There were some other ideas covered in one of CanadianBakin's threads.

[tejon]

Off to Michael's I go, then! Thank you

[sanrensho]

Off to Michael's I go, then! Thank you 

←

Maybe phone ahead. I definitely saw them at Christmas but haven't poked around there since then.

[CanadianBakin']

How do you all transport cupcakes? I just made up two dozen to take to my son's preschool (nothing special, so no pictures), and ended up taking them in the baking trays so they wouldn't fall over in the car on the way over. Any better ideas?

←

Michael's sells a plastic cupcake tray holder that doubles as sheet cake holder. Tupperware also has one.

There were some other ideas covered in one of CanadianBakin's threads.

←

Here's the link.

[Ling]

I would love to do the cupcakes in the ice-cream cones with my baking class on Friday. Do I put a cupcake liner in the cone, then fill with batter and bake as usual? Or do I put the batter directly in the cone? Thanks

ETA: Oops, just found out on Martha Stewart's site that I can pour the batter directly into the cone. Do you all use some sort of support so the cones don't topple over in the oven?

Edited February 19, 2006 by Ling (log)

[cookman]

I would love to do the cupcakes in the ice-cream cones with my baking class on Friday. Do I put a cupcake liner in the cone, then fill with batter and bake as usual? Or do I put the batter directly in the cone? Thanks 

←

Ling, I've done this for my daughter's class, and they all loved it. Buy those flat-bottomed cones, you know, the ones with the texture of styrofoam. The muffin batter goes right in them, with no liner. Don't overfill the cones, since the muffins need room to expand as they bake. If you overfill them, they will spill over the edge, and make a big mess. (I speak from experience!)

[Ling]

^haha...thanks. I'm not a fan of scrubbing the stove, so I'll remember now to overfill.

[lapasterie]

Check your cones to make sure they have no tiny holes also.

[momlovestocook]

When I made the cupcake cones, I put them in a muffin tin to help keep them from falling over.

Sandra

[Ling]

Thanks for the tips! I'll try to remember to take a picture of the cones we make.

[SweetSide]

For those cupcakes made in ice cream cones...

I made them once and what a disaster of a day I had -- toppling over, overflowing, underbaking, toppling again. Made me rue the day I had to ever make them again.

Well, Wednesday's the day I have to make them again. I see some solutions here -- cute pic of some in individual plastic cups to keep them upright (that would save scraping all my beautiful two-tone frosting off the container I had them in -- HA HA not so funny at 11pm)

Has anyone had a problem with the cakes underbaking or taking a long time to bake. Recipe I had said 30 min. After 45, and a lava flow (I'm with Ling on how fun it is to scrape batter out of the oven) and thinking they were done, I still ended up with sunken centers. The cones were in a muffin tin and stabilized with foil balls to prevent toppling when putting in the oven. Thinking between the tin, the foil, and the cone no heat could get to the actual batter.

Anyone with success at these have some good tips?

[ComeUndone]

My previous attempt (first time too!) with baking cupcakes in ice-cream cones turned out to be a success. You can find my baking notes in my blog:

http://wscwong.blogs.friendster.com/desser...eam_cone_t.html

some tips:

- I did not bother to anchor the filled cones in a muffin tin. Too unstable. Instead, I put all the cones in a 9X13 baking pan filled with rice/beans. Even if the batter spill, clean up is easy

- To transport the finished products, I anchored each cone in a clear plastic cup filled with coarse sugar. I used a second cup (inverted) to ensure the frosting did not get mess up during transport

- Make extra. Some of the cones will inevitably leak because they cannot withstand the expanding batter during baking.

Have fun! This is a crowd-pleaser.

[schneich]

a question to the pro cupcake bakers. i read everywhere that there is no need to cool buttercream cupcakes. why would that be so, if its because of the high sugarcontent, what about a custardbased buttercream??

what about temperatures over 25c isnt the buttercream running away ??

do all pro cupcakeshops have air conditioning ??

questions over questions...

cheers

t.

[lapasterie]

My twin grandnieces just turned 1 year old. The theme for the party was cupcakes so I made them each their own 6" cupcake. They had a great time digging into them.

Edited February 24, 2006 by lapasterie (log)