Cupcakes: Reference to Go

By Elinor Klivans

The take-along book for whipping up cupcakes anytime and anyplace—from the renowned food writer and author of Big Fat Cookies.

Drawn from the bestselling book, Cupcakes!, this ebook includes such inviting recipes as Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes, Vanilla Cheesecake Crunch-Top Cupcakes and the deliriously delicious Lemon Angel Cupcakes. Here are twenty-five scrumptious ways to bring smiles faster than a kid can lick the batter off a beater. From the elegant to the unexpected, these are Elinor Klivans’ favorite recipes, guaranteed to bring the wow factor to any occasion or event.

Praise for Cupcakes!

“Without spending any more time than you would making a mix you can create cupcakes that are elegant, simple, delicious, beautiful, comforting.” —The Nibble

“Lush, larger-than-life photographs are just the icing on the cupcake that is this delightful contribution to the canon of confectionary cookbooks . . . Unlike several other cupcake books, Klivans’ recipes are easy to follow and produce excellent results.” —Publishers Weekly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780811872676

Elinor Klivans

Elinor Klivans is an award-winning pastry chef trained in France and the United States. She is the author of several cookbooks, including Chocolate Cakes; 125 Cookies to Bake, Nibble, and Savor; and Bake and Freeze Desserts (a Julia Child Cookbook Award nominee), and coauthor of Williams Sonoma Essentials of Baking. Klivans is also a frequent guest on radio and television and has written for numerous national magazines.

Book preview

The Cupcakes

1. Kid-Simple Cupcakes

2. Banana Butterscotch Cupcakes

3. Lemon Coconut Snowballs

4. Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

5. White Mountain Chocolate Cupcakes

6. Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

7. Hummingbird Swirls

8. Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes

9. Orange-Glazed Cranberry-Spice Teacakes

10. Top-to-Bottom Crumb Cupcakes

11. Spring Bouquet Cupcakes

12. Apple Streusel Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes

13. Sticky Fig Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Glaze

14. Vanilla Cheesecake Crunch-Top Cupcakes

15. Lemon Angel Cupcakes

16. Chocolate-Covered Mint Meltaway Cupcakes

17. Carrot, Orange, and Golden Raisin Cupcakes

18. White Christmas Cupcakes

19. Sticky Pecan Upside-Down Cupcakes

20. Chocolate-Covered Brownie Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

21. Spiderweb Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes

22. Fruity, Nutty Harvest Cupcakes

23. Chocolate-Covered Hi-Hats

24. Lemon Poppy Seed Butterfly Cupcakes

25. Red, White, and Blueberry Cupcakes

MAKING GOOD CUPCAKES

Keep it simple is my cupcake motto. Cupcakes rely on straightforward and easy-to-understand methods. Most recipes that make 12 to 18 cupcakes use about 1 cup of flour, which results in about half the amount of batter that would be used for a large cake. These smaller quantities can be mixed together quickly. Making the frostings and toppings usually requires only beating or stirring the ingredients. Making cupcakes is relaxed, informal baking.

CUPCAKE SUPPLIES

Pans

Cupcakes are baked in muffin tins, which are also called muffin pans or cupcake pans. I prefer to use nonstick pans. Cupcake pans come in three sizes: regular, mini, and extra-large. Each cup of a regular cupcake pan—which might have either six or twelve cups—holds ¹/3 to ½ cup batter. Pans for mini-cupcakes, or tea cakes, have twelve 1-ounce cups. Pans for extra-large, or Texas, cupcakes have cups with a 1-cup capacity and usually six cups per pan. To bake any of the recipes in this deck, you’ll need enough pans to bake 18 regular cupcakes, 48 mini-cupcakes, or 12 extra-large cupcakes.

Pan Liners

The paper or foil liners used to line cupcake pans, often labeled baking cups, can be found at almost any supermarket. These fluted liners come in a regular 2 ½-inch size, a 1 ⁵/8-inch mini-size, and a 3 ½-inch extra-large size. These liners make for easy pan cleanup, keep baked cupcakes from drying out, and protect the cupcakes when they are transported to a picnic or during shipping.

Pastry Bags and Pastry Tips

A large pastry bag, about 16 inches long, is a useful tool, but a heavy-weight self-sealing freezer bag can be substituted. Disposable plastic pastry bags are another good option. A large star tip and a large plain tip are the only ones needed for decorating these cupcakes.

Wire Racks

Most cupcakes are cooled on a wire rack so the cupcakes do not get soggy on the bottom as they cool. Since standard rectangular racks hold about a dozen cupcakes, it is useful to have two of them.

MIXING AND BAKING CUPCAKES

When mixing a cupcake batter, it is important to know when you should beat the ingredients thoroughly and when you simply need to mix them together. Each recipe provides this information.

Most frostings simply require beating the ingredients together until smooth. Old-fashioned egg-white-and-sugar frostings, however, are beaten in a container set over a pan of hot water. These frostings need to be cooked until they increase in volume, become white and fluffy, and are firm enough to hold a shape.

To make powdered-sugar glazes, you simply stir the liquid and dry ingredients together. The consistency of these glazes can be adjusted by adding a little more powdered sugar to thicken them or a little more liquid to thin them.

FILLING CUPCAKE PANS

When filling pans or cupcake liners with batter, use a tablespoon or a smaller spoon to drop the batter into the center of each cup or liner. Rubber or silicone spatulas are useful for scraping all of the batter out of the bowl.

The size of the cupcake pan cups, of course, determines the cupcake size, but the quantity of batter you use for each cupcake is also a factor. Use less batter, and the cupcake will rise just to the top of the liner or pan. Use more batter, and the cupcake forms a big flat top that rises over the top of the pan.

Most of the recipes take advantage of the convenience of paper liners, but there are a few that omit liners. I don’t use them for upside-down cupcakes that have sticky bottoms, which would stick to the liners, or for angel food cupcakes, which need to climb the sides of the pan as they rise.

When making either dense or very moist cupcakes, I spray the liners with nonstick spray. This keeps the baked cupcakes from sticking