Cupcake Conspiracy | Cupcake Pro-Tips

INDIANAPOLIS - So you want to make some cupcakes, but you’d rather they not end up in the next posting of Cake Wrecks? Follow these best practices for better cupcake baking.

IN”GREEDY”ENTS:

If possible, try not to skimp on your ingredients. Higher quality flour, butter and flavorings will seriously make a much better cupcake. If possible, get cake flour instead of all-purpose. Cake flour has lower gluten content and creates a softer texture and less binding – think chewy. Higher gluten is better for breads, especially yeast breads.

KEEP COOL

It’s a good idea to let all your ingredients balance out to a cool room temperature. Unless your recipe calls for cold butter, let butter, eggs, milk sit until they are all the same temp. Items too cold can make your mixing bad, lumpy and not fully incorporate all the ingredients.

MIX IT UP

Mixing is quite a controversial topic, but generally I lean toward the camp where “Just Mixed” makes the better cupcake. It’s in the WAY you mix it, but over mixing with create spongy, gummy cakes and that is no fun. Alternate with dry and wet ingredients, ending with dry, then mix until just when the consistency looks smooth. With a recipe where you cream butter and sugar first, still follow the same process after.

HEAVY CREAM

You can easily screw up creaming butter and sugar by not paying attention to temperature and over mixing. Soften butter to about room temp, and a COOL room, not a sweltering room. Just softened, and let cream together until it just becomes smooth. If you beat or mix too hard, it will get clumpy and can make your cupcakes heavy and not bake evenly.

GET BAKED

Always pre-heat your oven for at least 20 minutes to ensure an even temp when baking. If you haven’t tested your oven temp, it’s always good to check it with a thermometer to make sure it is heating evenly and at the correct temp. Some ovens temps vary with amount of use, can become uncalibrated and so forth. Electric ovens differ from gas and convection ovens. Details, details! But very important if you are serious about baking.

The good thing if that is all over your head is to just find out what the temp actually is with a thermometer if you are concerned it is too hot or not hot enough and adjust you temp knob accordingly.

Next Cupcake Conspiracy: Happiest Halloween Cupcakes That Ever Existed!

See recipes on my tumblr food blog

Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked 300 apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic entertainment content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

Follow and contact Twinkle:  Foodspotting, Tumblr and Twitter.