Tips for Making Various Cupcake Styles and Sizes

Big Book of
Cupcakes

I was at Half Price Books flipping through cookbooks.  On Amazon, I found Big Book of Cupcakes: 150 Brilliantly Delicious Dreamcakes filled with cute cupcakes that were mostly simple to make.  If you are into cupcakes for parties, you need to get the book.  Until then I will share a great tip from the book on How to Make Uniform Sized Cupcakes. This idea replaces the guesswork of filling the cupcake liner or the muffin tin 2.3 full.  The tip is to use a specialized cookie scoop or ice cream scoop (on Amazon and also known as a “disher” in the cafeteria trade) size based on the type of muffin tin you are using and how long to bake. The book lists how much to use to rise above the pan like cupcake shops do.  The amount listed below is amount of batter for rising only to top of tin.  You will need to test the cooking time based on the recipe you are using. 

Below are more helpful baking tools you may also find on Amazon.

• Mini Tin with Liners = small scoop (2 teaspoons or approximately 0.65 ounces) Bake 10-12 minutes
• Standard Tin with Liners = medium scoop (1.5 tablespoons or approximately 1.33 ounces) Bake 12-15
• Jumbo Tin with Liners = large scoop (3 tablespoons or approximately 4 ounces) Bake 18-22 minutes
• King-size Tin (a.k.a. Texas Cupcakes) – note the difference between a king-size and a jumbo-size is it is deeper!  So be sure you buy the right size pan.  Test standard ice cream scoop since this was not listed.

I have used a melon baller to make the correct size cookies and candy balls before, but never considered using a similar tool for cupcakes.  I love this idea!  The article in the link in first paragraph also notes which size scoop you should use for cookies and truffles.  I suggest using the truffle size to also make filling for candy balls. If you are looking for something simpler and more cookie like and still want the look of frosted cupcakes, the book above also shared the idea of making and decorating Cupcake Shaped Rice Krispies Treats using a cookie cutter to get the shape.

Filling Cupcake Cups with Batter contains 2 different tips and a video from Wilton showing the pastry bag or scoop-spoon techniques for filling cupcake tins with liners.  I am not really a fan of the bag method because you have to keep buying their bags or using special paper to make bags.  Yes, there will be more expense in using special spoons or scoops the first time you buy, however you can wash and reuse them rather than trashing a bag.  I strongly believe in the reuse principle for both economic and ecological reasons.  Any way you look at it, it is a small price to pay for uniform cupcakes if you are big on baking.