Countdown to W Day Begins

Holy cupcake, Batfriends!  That little alarm just went off in my head.  The first wedding is less than a month away now! 

Yesterday, I decided I'd better try my own version of Funfetti.  We're going to use pink and black sprinkles and I put them in Duncan Hines French Vanilla Cake mix.  And I added 1 tsp of clear vanilla just to see what happens.

So far, 24 cupcakes have been pretty reliable from the cake mixes I've used.  I intended to make 24 and try to squeek out a 25th so I could frost 5 in each design in each different cupcake wrapper to see how it comes out.   You know that saying about the best laid plans…

The BTB (Bride To Be) chose the 5 different cupcake papers.  2 are single colors (fuchsia and black) and the other 3 are patterned.  When I loaded the papers into the cupcake pans, I noticed that the single color ones seemed lighter weight but didn't think much of it. 

Pink &Black Liners are the tiniest bit shorter

When the cupcake batter was scooped into the cups, I only had 22 and managed to get a 23rd by scraping and scraping the bowl and taking a little bit from each of the other cupcakes.  What the heck?  I set them side by side and found that the plain black and plain pink ones are slightly shorter.  Unconsciously, I must have put more batter in the larger cups.  ALSO -- so far these papers haven't peeled!

I'm feeling a little more secure after decorating the cupcakes - I know I can do it now.  BTB approved all decorations and the amount of the jimmies used to make the custom funfetti cake.

I learned:

1. I'm blind.  I couldn't find the black and white wedding decoration sugar thingies at Country Kitchen, so printed the picture of them, cut them out and stuck the paper on so BTB could see what it would look like.  Almost.  We stopped by Country Kitchen and asked … the black & white sugar thingies were there all along.  I just couldn't see them!
2. If I'm piping on the frosting, don't put a crumb coat on - it looks weird.
3. The fancy carrot decorations look a LOT better than the little ones, even if in a cluster.  (Although, I wonder  how they'd look if I added fuzzy tops by hand.)
4. I am still not happy with my sunflowers. 

5. Am I the only one who thinks the black jimmies on the pink frosting look like mouse (pardon me) turds?

6. Speaking of looking like turds…. I need a LOT more practice using the large round tip to frost.

7. I still don't know why these cupcake papers haven't peeled.  The pink and white swirl ones and the zebra stripe ones are made by the same company that makes the ones I had so much trouble with (lemon cupcakes).  The only difference I can find is that there is a cupcake logo on the bottom of the troublesome liners.  Maybe those are different than the others?

 

8. For safety's sake, I need to bake most of the cupcakes in white Betty Crocker papers and then put them into the decorative ones.
9. The pink frosted cupcakes were supposed to have black lizards with pink features.  A squiggled blob of black frosting doth not a lizard make.  I could be in trouble here.  

Round Two - Me vs Cupcakes - THE RESULTS

Here are the results of my definitely non-scientific test of cupcake liners.  The liners I used were based on what is available at our local grocery.

We went and got 4 packages of cupcake papers. 

• Betty Crocker liners (White)
• Reynolds Foil liners (Silver and White)
• (Pink) Reynolds StayBrite™ Baking Cups

• (Blue) - Cupcake Creations ™ by Siege™ (Identical, except for color, to the green set that peeled 

I set them up in my 12 cupcake pan and then in all kinds of configurations in my two 6 cupcake pans.

When they came out of the oven, I let them sit about 5 minutes in the pans and then took out two of each kind.  They were still very hot.  I left the rest in the pans to cool enough to not hurt myself to remove them from the pans.

Within 5 minutes out of the pans, the cupcakes that I had removed when they were very hot - the ones in the blue wrappers - had already peeled!  The rest remain fine.

After 3 hours, the same two  that peeled immediately remain the same - no more peeling, no less.

I left them overnight and all blue ones are peeled.  The pink ones had peeled partially.  Here is the full report:

In the pan with the 12 cupcakes --

• Blue - All 4 papers peeled - both the ones I took out of  the pan right away, and the ones I left
• Pink - 1 peeled, 2 had partially peeled on one side, and 1 was fine

• Betty Crocker White - 2 of 2 were perfect

• Foil with white liner - the white paper part was perfect and the foil had slightly pulled away
• White liner from the foil (didn't use foil) - pulled in one spot, but overall not bad
• Foil with no paper liner - perfect

In one of the pans with 6 cupcakes --

• Foil with white liner - perfect

• Foil with no paper liner - perfect
• Pink (2) - one peeled on one side and the other one was good
• Betty Crocker White (2) - both perfect

In the other pan with 6 cupcakes --  I used the blue papers as the inner paper (liner) inside various other liners

• Blue  in Pink - peeled

• Blue in white liner from the foil  liners - peeled
• Blue in foil liner only - peeled

• Blue in foil lined with white - peeled

• Blue in silicone cupcake liners (2) - both peeled

THE WINNER of this "contest" was the Betty Crocker white liners.  I had NO trouble whatsoever with them.

The Reynolds foil in all configurations worked extremely well.  Only one white paper only, pulled away in one spot.

The Pink Reynolds StayBrite™ was not very good.  Only two of six were good.

The Blue Cupcake Creations ™ was a total failure.

Now, in defense of the liners that did not win I wonder how they would do with a regular, plain old out of the box cake mix.  The recipe I used seemed to deflate as they cooled - I imagine this is due to the fluffy egg whites.  This may mean that the test was good only for this particular recipe or similar recipes.   The recipe also used buttermilk.  Some people reported that they had trouble whenever they used buttermilk in the recipe.  Therefore,  more testing is essential with all types of cupcake recipes.  I would like to TRY to use one of each kind of cupcake liner whenever I make cupcakes and keep track of the results.

One last comment about the blue liners - these liners are very nice, heavy weight papers.  The packaging states "Bakery Quality / Easy Peel / No Muffin Pans Needed! / Grease Proof.  They actually seem to be doing what they are supposed to be doing.  Unfortunately, for my purposes - the wedding cupcakes - they just don't seem to work.  I think I have no choice but to bake in the Betty Crocker white liners and put the baked cupcakes into the pretty, decorative liners before frosting.

But here's the really good news:  Hubby took the cupcakes to work and said they got seriously rave reviews!  I think we've got a winner!