8.01.2010

Fancy (looking...) cupcakes

This weekend was my little one's blessing at church and after church, my husband's family came over for a little luncheon. I tried quite a few new recipes (which I'll blog about later), but I wanted to share this cool way to make your cupcakes look really fancy...

First, cut a piece of parchment paper about 7-8 inches square. Place it over the top of a cupcake slot.

Press down into the cupcake slot with a cup that fits into the cupcake slot. Ideally, you want a straight glass, not one with a curve or slope to it...
Help the parchment paper fold in all sorts of ways and crease it where you want it. Repeat for as many cupcakes as you want to make.


Place all the cupcake holders between cups and let sit for 2-3 hours (or overnight... whatever!)
Place in cupcake slots and fill with cake batter.
These look gorgeous (and taste delicious with chocolate cake, cream cheese frosting and a pretty red fruit... so my preference is for a chocolate cake mix... but you really could use any cake mix you wanted.

You want to keep your parchment paper really clean so I chose to "pipe" my batter into the holders. My sister (who told me how to make these cupcakes) said that she used a funnel just so that the sides of the paper would stay clean. Either way... If you are going to pipe it, you can either have someone hold the bag for you while you fill it or put it in something to hold it while you fill it. This is an empty flour cannister I have. Worked great for supporting my bag while I filled it with batter.Cut off a small tip. The thing about batter is that it is THIN... so it doesn't "pipe" into things as easily as frosting does. Make your tip really small so that it doesn't just pour out of your bag too fast that you can't control the flow. If anything... cut it really small. You can always cut more!
Pipe it into your holders...You just put in as much batter as you would for a normal cupcake.
Its kind of hard to tell how much batter you are putting in these. Some of mine turned out bigger, some smaller... It worked out.
Move your baking rack down lower before you preheat your oven. Your parchment paper will burn if it is too close to the heating element. Bake according to box directions and then frost.

I loved them with cream cheese frosting. I used THIS recipe for cream cheese frosting. I also piped my frosting onto the top. If you don't know how to pipe frosting, click HERE for a tutorial from Make It and Love It. then topped them with strawberries. I cut them up the night before and put a little sugar on them so that they would be a bit syrup-y (??). My sister used frozen raspberries and she LOVED how much syrup they had on them. You choose your fruit topping... but any way you do it, it will be beautiful and won't really take much more time than regular cupcakes. The hardest part is making the parchment paper holders.

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3 comments:

Sarah said...

This is so cool, Adele, and doesn't seem too hard! Thanks!

Ashley Schill said...

Those look delicious! I love cupcakes and this is an adorable idea for presenting them! Keep the posts coming! :)

Hannah said...

What a cook idea!!

 
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