Heavenly Sweets Bakery Dessert Diary: March 2012

Ever wondered how to bake the perfect cupcake? Not too dry, perfectly raised, won't dip in the center when they cool and form a huge icing crater! If you've been at war with your cupcakes, I'm going to show you a simple way to bake and decorate the perfect cupcakes, this tutorial will also include a recipe for delicious cream cheese icing! Baking and decorating cupcakes is an art we all should have under our belts .... everyone loves cupcakes!

Let's talk about batter:
For cupcakes you want a nice light batter, you don't want a really dense cake batter, like pound cake. A simple strawberry, vanilla or butter cake recipe will do just fine. We're going to use a simple strawberry cake batter today!

Here's what we need to get started:

If you don't have a fancy mixer, that's fine, you can use a hand mixer or just mix them by hand

You'll also need some cupcake liners, they come in all sorts of colors and patterns, choose the liners

that match your event accessories/colors

Now That We Have the tools That We Need ...

Let's Bake Some Cupcakes!

I slowly add my wet ingredients (milk, eggs, oil) to my dry ingredients already in mixer (flour etc.)

Once the batter is mixed, we're ready to pour it into the cupcake liners. I use a piping bag to do this, but you can also do this using a large ziplock freezer bag, just cut a little bit off of one of the corners, this way you can control how much batter is placed into the liner, this is the key to getting a nice shape to your cupcake. Over filling will cause it to rise over the sides of the pan which is messy and causes it to lose it's shape, it also means you'll have to cook the cupcake longer which could cause it to be dry. (and nobody likes dry cupcakes :-) ) Here's what it should look like:

Once this is done, into the oven they go. I don't usually put my cakes/cupcakes on the bottom rack close to the heating element, causes them to bake to quickly and changes the texture.

Bake at 350 or whatever temp. your recipe recommends for about 12 -15 minutes

or until toothpick comes out clean.

THIS IS IMPORTANT! Do NOT allow your cupcakes to cool in the pan. The metal is still hot and will continue to cook the cake even though it's not in the oven! It's called carryover baking and it's the cause of a lot of dry over cooked desserts.

Once your cupcakes are done baking immediately remove them from the pan and place them on a heating rack to completely cool.

While they are cooling ... let's make some icing!!

Recipe for Cream Cheese Icing:

1 stick Butter

1 pack Cream Cheese

1 2 lb bag Powdered Sugar

1 TBSP milk

Step 1 Cream Your Butter and Cream Cheese until mixed

Then turn the mixer on low and slowly add your powdered sugar and milk, continue to mix and it should turn into a smooth delicious icing.

Now The Fun Part .. Let's Decorate!

For this we'll need a piping bag (again you can use a ziplock back), 2D tip, Sprinkles, and these cute little cupcake picks.

Starting at the edge of your cupcake, put pressure on the top of the bag to squeeze out the icing, guide the bag with your finger. Lift the bag, release pressure and reapply, squeezing from the top of the bag.

Repeat this process as you begin to move counter clockwise around the cupcake. Continue until you have covered the top of the cupcake.