Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes... Tips and Tricks

Who loves cupcakes? ME!!! I absolutely love them! I think I could eat one every day and not get sick of them. Can I get an Amen on that?

But in addition to eating cupcakes I love to make them. I love to try new recipes and make up my own recipes with Jesus' help! He always helps me... :) 

I wanted to share some tips and tricks of my recent cupcake baking that might help you in your cupcake baking adventures! 

First of all I got these adorable cupcake liners at Ross! For only $2.99. I thought they added a nice touch. 

Pray! Pray! Pray! I always pray and ask Jesus to help me before I cook or bake. Include Jesus in your baking adventures and everything will turn out better! :) 

TIP #1.  It is always vital that you sift/mix your dry ingredients in a separate bowl, (Flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder etc.), before adding them to the rest of your ingredients. That way you will get a uniform dispersion of the elements. If you just throw it all in one bowl with the rest of the ingredients it will not be dispersed evenly and your cupcakes might not rise properly.

TIP #2. Homemade frosting is a cinch! It doesn't take a lot of ingredients and it's easy to make a simple chocolate or vanilla butter cream frosting with only 5 ingredients or less. The results are awesome!

I recently made a delicious chocolate butter cream frosting and instead of using cocoa powder for the chocolate taste, it said to melt chocolate chips in a pan over medium heat. I was considering just eating the melted chocolate by itself but I resisted! :) Well... I might have had a spoonful just to make sure it wasn't poisonous.

After the chocolate cooled I added it to the rest of the frosting ingredients (blended softened butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract etc.) It produced a very nice milk chocolate flavor.

Most butter cream frosting recipes consist of these ingredients:

1/2 Cup Softened Butter 

3/4 box of Powdered Sugar (more or less depending on how sweet you want it)

1 Tablespoon Milk 

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

This is the typical measuring amounts that I use to frost about 6 or so cupcakes. (I don't like to make more than I will eat) If you want to frost a cake or make 12 or more cupcakes, I would double the recipe. 

*Add cocoa powder to flavor it chocolate. Or melt some chocolate and add it in last, once it has cooled*

TIP #3: One huge tip that I learned a long time ago was to put my cupcake batter in a plastic storage bag (Ziploc) and cut the tip off. And use that to fill the baking cups. Let me tell you...it is SO much easier than trying to use a spoon or trying to tip the bowl to fill the cups. 

TIP #4: Make sure to only fill the cups a little less than 3/4 full. Otherwise you will have a mess on your hands and they will not be cooked evenly. 

FUN FACT: Did you know that you can mix a little tiny bit of white vinegar to milk in order to make buttermilk? I love to add buttermilk to my cupcake recipes but I hate to buy a whole bottle of buttermilk only to use a 1/4 cup or so of it. So I went online and found out how to make a buttermilk substitution... white vinegar and milk! Can you believe that? I thought it sounded gross, but trust me, it's awesome when it's mixed in and baked. Gives a really nice buttermilk type flavor. :) Here is the ratio I found online for making it: 

1 Tablespoon white vingar

Just under 1 cup of milk

Mix together and let set 1 minute and then use as much as you need for your specified recipe. 

You can use this for any recipe that calls for buttermilk.

I hope these easy little tips help you next time you bake cupcakes! :) 

Enjoy...