Tags: Cupcakes flattopcupcakes food foodblogger howto
Cupcakes, we love to love them. They make for beautiful and easy to share party favourites, an easy to put together present and of course, a quick indulgent treat.
If you have decorated cupcakes before, you will admit that it is easier to be more creative with a flat top cupcake because just about any type of cupcake decoration style is possible as you will see below with a few of my decorated cupcakes:
As you can see, flat tops gives you an opportunity to have a vast portfolio of beautifully and neatly decorated cupcakes.
Here are some of the tips and tricks I have adopted from baking cupcakes several days every single week.
FOLLOW THE RECIPE CAREFULLY
Baking is a science, and by that I mean when you do decide to follow a recipe, make sure you in fact have the right equipment in order for the result to be good. That means, measuring cups and spoons with standardised measurements on them so that you don’t find yourself wasting your ingredients by having a crazy result.
With that said, baking is fun and you should allow yourself to get creative at the appropriate point in your recipe with the right quantities. Have fun with it!
WATCH YOUR OVEN TEMPERATURE
Cupcakes bake best between 175 – 180 degrees celsius. This is vital especially when you are getting a recipe from the internet, know the units that are being used, celsius and farhenheit are different. If the temperature is too high, then you are definitely going to get cupcakes with high tops on them. If the temperature is too low, your cupcakes will have sunken centers.
ADD VINEGAR
Yes, you read right, vinegar! A teaspoon to a tablespoon of vinegar before the cupcakes go into the oven is almost a guarantee that you cupcakes will be even and flat, works for cakes too! Just be careful because like I said in the first tip, baking is a science, so quantities matter.
Suggestion: go for recipes that already call for vinegar.
DO NOT OVERFILL YOU CUPCAKE TRAY
Another cupcake baking fail comes about when you overfill your baking tray leaving very little room for the cupcake to grow evenly causing it to shoot up. It is recommended that you fill you cupcake liners halfway to three quarters full leaving room for your cupcakes to be nice, flat and even.
BAKE YOUR CUPCAKE BATTER IMMEDIATELY
I observed this a little later on in my baking career. For cupcakes, ensure that when you make the batter, you do not leave it out for too long, bake it immediately and you will get the best result!
LAST RESORT: APPLY HEAVY OBJECT OR CUT THE TOPS OFF
If none of the above works for you, and your cupcakes still have high tops, a last resort can be to use your oven tray and apply pressure on your cupcakes immediately after you pull them out of the oven, not a second later! Otherwise, just cut the tops off to make them easier to decorate.
I really hope these tips help you all in your baking endeavours. Cupcakes are so beautiful! I hope you make lots and lots of them.
Happy baking!
