Add Your Special Touch
Another thing that makes homemade cupcakes special are the added ingredients. Keep in mind that you can add these ingredients to store-bought cupcakes as well, but without adjusting the main ingredients, sometimes it just doesnt work as well.
So, what can you add to your homemade cupcakes to make them really stand out? For your traditional vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, people typically add vanilla extract and cocoa powder, respectively. You dont have to settle for what most people do though.
You can add all sorts of crazy ingredients to your cupcakes to give them a unique flavor. Some ingredients to consider are mashed bananas, chocolate chips, slivered almonds, food coloring , coffee, cream cheese, crushed cookies, various spices, diced fruits, and sliced vegetables.
As you can see, just about anything has a potential home in your cupcake batter. Many of these ingredients are used in frosting as well.
How To Make Cake Pops
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Cupcakes might be delicious but cake pops are delicious as well and a lot more fun! Cake pops are a sweet treat consisting of cake turned into a lollipop. Originally made famous by Bakerella,XResearch source cake pops also ended up in Starbucks and bakeries. Making your own at home is a cinch and a whole lot of fun too. They’re also ideal for any partyfrom kid through adult, all will be delighted to bite into cake instead of hard candy.
What Ingredients Are Are In Store
Until you add frosting to your cupcakes, theyre not quite ready to serve. With that being said, lets take a quick look at the ingredients that youll most often find in pre-made frosting.
The majority of store-bought frosting is offered in one of two types: creamy and whipped. Creamy frosting is somewhat dense and heavy, whereas whipped frosting contains more air and is lighter and fluffier.
Both types of frosting contain the same basic set of ingredients, which are listed below, but whipped frosting generally has cellulose gel and cellulose gum added to it.
The first ingredient youll typically find in store-bought frosting is sugar. After sugar, youll usually see a blend of corn syrup, water, corn starch, and vegetable oil.
Some lesser ingredients that you might see are salt, mono and diglycerides, polysorbate 60, coloring , natural and artificial flavors, potassium sorbate , as well as a few other ingredients.
Most flavors of frosting contain essentially the same set of ingredients, with certain ingredients being more prominent in mix to create a specific flavor. Some flavors also have added ingredients, like chocolate frosting, which typically contains cocoa.
Now that weve spent some time discussing store-bought cupcakes, lets look at what ingredients are needed to make cupcakes from scratch.
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Ingredients Needed To Make Homemade Cupcakes
While store-bought cupcakes are relatively quick and easy, youre limited by the ingredients and flavors offered by the various cupcake mix manufacturers.
If youve become comfortable with making cupcakes from a box, or if you just want to have a little more flexibility with your cupcakes, its time to move on to homemade cupcakes.
With homemade cupcakes, the end result can be drastically different from one baker to the next. Because youre only limited by your imagination, your creativity, or lack of creativity, will take center stage.
We recommend starting with the basics, which well cover below, then expanding to include more non-traditional ingredients.
My Best Vanilla Cake Recipe Is
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Plush, moist, fluffy crumb without being freakishly unnaturally so . No more dense cakes!
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Keeps near perfectly for 4 whole days. 100% fresh on Day 1, still 96% perfect on Day 4. Thats unheard of!
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Lovely vanilla and butter flavour without a greasy mouthfeel
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Even, elegant crumb no large tunnels or irregular, crumbly holes
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Bakes perfectly flat no levelling required!
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Makes perfect cupcakes
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Not overly sweet and
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As tender as it can be but still be stable enough to make a large layered cake smothered with frosting or piles of cream and berries. In contrast, Chiffon Cakes and Japanese Sponges which, while lighter still, cannot actually hold up to much extra weight the bottom layer gets quite squished.
So if all that appeals to you too, then I dare say this might become YOUR favourite vanilla cake recipe too! And heres a little preview to show you how soft and fluffy it still is after 4 days:
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Optional: Trim The Brown Edges Off Your Cake
This is definitely a bonus option but I always trim off the brown from my cakes because I think it makes a prettier slice. Its honestly pretty easy to do and also makes the cake very slightly smaller so you have less of a chance of having brown show through your buttercream.
Turn your cake upside down so the bottom is at the top. Slide your knife just under the brown skin and slowly cut it off in one piece. Keep your knife nice and flat for best results. Do the same thing to the sides.
You can see the difference.
If the brown doesnt bother you then you can definitely skip this step.
Add The Dry Ingredients
In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Use a whisk to stir everything together well.
Sift the flour mixture into the butter mixer. This will remove any lumps from the cake flour so it incorporates into the batter.
With the mixer on low speed gradually pour in the milk. Continue to beat the batter just until all the flour is incorporated. Take extra care to not overmix.
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How To Make A Cake Rise
Sick of sunken middles? Or flat cakes? Learn how to make a cake rise with our easy tips, so the next cake you bake is a whopper.
How to Make a Cake Rise
As a general rule of thumb, high rising cakes generally come from a light and fluffy batter, and often this means mixing ingredients so that the batter doesnt lose air. So with that in mind, here are our tips:
- Add a leavening agent to the flour. Most cakes will call for a leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda. These create the bubbles you need for the cake to rise. If the flour you use is self-raising, it already has a leavening agent in it.
- Make sure your butter is room temperature, and beat the butter and sugar together until properly creamed. This should look really smooth and pale.
- Be careful with the cake batter. We advise folding the ingredients together, not beating them, as this will keep the mixture aerated.
- Check your oven is at the correct temperature. If it is too hot, the cake doesnt have time to rise, and if it is too cold it will rise too high and then sink at the end.
Thats it! Go forth and bake!.
- Betty’s Top 5 Recipes
The Role Of Eggs In A Cake
After the butter and sugar are creamed together, it is time to add the eggs. Add the eggs in one at a time to give them a chance to emulsify into the batter.
You may add the eggs while the mixer is running on low to further incorporate them. The eggs should be room temperature to create smoother, more homogenous batter if the eggs are cold, the batter may appear curdled.
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How To Make Ahead And Store The Homemade Vanilla Cake:
Both the cake and the chocolate frosting can be made ahead. Allow the cakes to cool completely, wrap them well in plastic wrap and place each layer into a zip top freezer bag. Freeze the cake layers for up to one month.
To frost the cake, simply remove from the freezer and allow to thaw in the refrigerator with wrapping intact. Then, frost the cake once it has completely thawed.
Store the cake at room temperature on the counter. I like to store under a cake dome to keep the cake fresh.
Baking Soda And Vinegar
This may be one of the easiest ways to replace eggs in cake and it utilizes ingredients you already may have on hand. Mixing one teaspoon of baking soda with 1 tablespoon of vinegar can replace one egg .
Since blending these ingredients creates a chemical reaction that releases carbon dioxide, it is perfect to use in cakes that are meant to be light and fluffy.
Use baking soda and vinegar to replace eggs in a recipe and expect to get an airy cake that has a slight vinegar tang .
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How Do You Make Layer Cakes At Home
How to Build a Layer Cake
Baking Tips For Perfect Cakes
Cake baking tips to help you become a cake master. Never bake a cake disaster again!
With every recipe I publish and tip I share, my goal is to help you become a better baker. As a home baker turned cookbook author and recipe publisher, Ive made THOUSANDS of mistakes in the kitchen, especially when it comes to making the perfect cake. Let me share the cake baking tips Ive learned over the years.
This useful information will help guarantee your next cake is the perfect cake.
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Stacking And Filling Your Cake
Time to start stacking our cake! Start by placing your cake board onto the turntable and center it. Place a small dollop of buttercream on the board and put your first cake layer on the board. There should be a little space all the way around your cake between the cake and the board.
Place a big dollop of buttercream on top of the layer and use your offset spatula to push the buttercream to the edges of the cake. Then hold the spatula at a 45º angle, with the tip in the center of the buttercream and turn the cake slowly to flatten out the buttercream. Keep your spatula level so that the layer of buttercream is level.
I will periodically get down to eye level with the buttercream to check and see if its got a dome in the center or if it is nice and flat. A flat cake is a stable cake.
Optional: Fill Your Cake With Strawberry Puree and Strawberry Buttercream
If you want to spice up your filling, you can easily add some flavoring to your buttercream like a strawberry puree. You can fill your cake with straight strawberry but you need a very thin layer or your cake layers will slip around too easily. You can use my strawberry puree recipe but when you use fresh fruit, it always has to be refrigerated which can make the cake taste dry because the butter in the cake is cold.
I like to use this shelf stable strawberry filling that a lot of bakeries use. You can mix a little into your buttercream and make it flavored or you can spread a little straight onto your cake layers.
Add Items To Make A Cake
In the crafting menu, you should see a crafting area that is made up of a 3×3 crafting grid. To make a cake, place , , , and in the 3×3 crafting grid.
When making a cake, it is important that the items are placed in the exact pattern as the image below. In the first row, there should be 3 milk. In the second row, there should be 1 sugar in the first box, 1 egg in the second box, and 1 sugar in the third box. In the third row, there should be 3 wheat. This is the Minecraft crafting recipe for a cake.
Now that you have filled the crafting area with the correct pattern, the cake will appear in the box to the right.
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Use Parchment Paper Rounds
First, make sure you have quality cake pans. From one baker to another I swear by Fat Daddios cake pans. Incredible quality for the price. Im not working with this brand, Im just a genuine fan.
No matter what size or brand cake pan you use, make sure you prepare it appropriately. These days I ALWAYS use parchment paper rounds. Trace the bottom of the cake pans on a large piece of parchment paper. Cut out the parchment circle. Then, very lightly grease the cake pans with butter or nonstick spray. I usually use coconut oil nonstick spray or baking spray which has a little flour in it. Place the parchment round inside, then grease the parchment round too. Yes, grease the pan AND the parchment. This promises an ultra non-stick environment for your cake. Never any sticking. I usually keep a stack of parchment rounds on hand just in case Im in a rush to get a cake in the oven.
When the cake has cooled, run a thin knife around the edge, invert the cake on your hand or work surface, then pull off the cake pan. Peel off the parchment round.
If youre serving the cake right out of the pan, such as a sheet cake, no need to line with parchment. Just grease the pan.
Start With The Basics
As we mentioned, people like to put their own spin on cupcakes when theyre making them from scratch. While thats great, and we definitely recommend doing so once youve gained some experience, lets first take a look at the basics.
So, what ingredients do you need to make homemade cupcakes from scratch? Unsurprisingly, you need many of these same ingredients that youll find in most boxed cake mixes.
The bulk of the mixture will typically be made up of all-purpose flour . Aside from flour, your next largest amounts of ingredients will be sugar and either butter or oil.
After that, youll have some lesser ingredients, such as milk, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Various recipes call for different amounts of the ingredients mentioned above. For example, if you want your cupcakes to be sweeter, add a little more sugar. If you want cupcakes that retain their level of moisture longer, use butter instead of oil.
This is part of the magic with homemade cupcakes. Although youre using the same basic ingredients as you get with store-bought cupcakes, youre able to easily adjust the amounts of each ingredient.
With boxed cake mixes, each manufacturer has a blend that is typically consistent throughout all of their product lines.
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