Cupcake Hints & Tips

 Last week we were in charge of bringing treats to Billy's basketball game.  I also needed a treat for the kids after dinner on Sunday, because there wouldn't be enough of the Rainbow Spring Dessert and most of them wouldn't appreciate the goodness of it.  So I made two batches of cupcakes, perfect solution for the game and dessert on Sunday.  Since I've pinned many a great tip and tricks for cupcake making, I decided to test a few of them out.  Some were great, others not so much, so here's my thumb up or thumb down rating for some of the best cupcake tips on Pinterest.

First up - This tip for making bigger higher cupcakes by filling the cups a little fuller and cooking at a lower temperature.  Sadly, it didn't make any difference for me.  I filled the cups 3/4 of the way full, preheated the oven to 350 and then I turned on the convection which lowers the heat to 325.  Still the same flatter cupcakes.  I don't know if the convection made any difference, I wouldn't think so, so maybe it was just the recipe she used that made them dome up like that. 
So for this tip - THUMBS DOWN

Next - This tip (or several others) for using canning rings to hold your cupcake liners so you can bake more at a time.  I was really excited for this one since I was making two batches and didn't want to be in the kitchen all afternoon.  I lined my rings out on my pan, set the liners in, and when I started filling, the liners all sank down into the ring.   I don't know if I did this wrong, I don't know how I could do it any different, but I had a big mess as most of the cupcakes overflowed the liners and cooked onto the pan.   I should have taken a picture.  I measured (eyeballed) and the rings are a little bit smaller than a muffin tin cup, so it made the liners sit up straighter, thus giving a little less room for batter.  They were a little skiwampus where the overflowed, or small little things, all edible still, but not very pretty.
So for this tip - THUMBS DOWN

I was pretty discouraged and a little leery of trying anything else, but I persevered all in the name of science. lol

3rd Tip - Back to the same site as the first tip, I decided to try this, her recipe for Nanny Burke's Buttercream Frosting.   Winner, winner, chicken dinner!  I'm not usually a fan of buttercream because it's just too sugary tasting, but this wasn't, it was buttery flavored and pretty good.  I did add the shortening with it for firmness like she mentions.  Now I wasn't piping it on to my finger to eat it liked she did, but it was good.
So for this tip - THUMBS UP

4th Tip - This genius little video for mess free filling/using your pastry bags.  It's so simple and worked really well.  However, it didn't work very well for using two different colors at the same time, but I think I might have filled the one too full.
So for this tip - THUMBS UP

Finally the last tip - This trick from Our Best Bites (those girls are amazing!) for making multiple color swirled frosting.  I didn't have any disposable decorating bags, so I just used ziploc sandwich bags and cut the corners off.  I filled them like they said, not too full, flattened them down a little, stacked them together and slid them in my decorating bag.  It worked perfectly!  This was fun, I've got to try it again.
So for this tip - THUMBS UP

Overall, a good little experiment.  I crossed 5 things off my Pinterest "to do" list and we got to eat the yummy results. :)