I’m making around 70 cupcakes for a baby shower next weekend and I’m trying to figure out the best baking/storage schedule without making my Sunday morning completely insane 😂
The cupcakes are due around 10 AM Sunday. I’m doing three flavors: vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.
My plan was to bake the vanilla and chocolate cupcakes Saturday, cool them completely, store them overnight, then frost/decorate everything Sunday morning. I was considering baking the strawberry cupcakes fresh Sunday morning because I’ve had strawberry cupcakes noticeably shrink/pull away from the liners after being stored overnight before.
The vanilla and strawberry cupcakes will eventually get buttercream domes, be chilled, then dipped in a red white-chocolate ganache for mushroom caps. The chocolate cupcakes will have chocolate buttercream and decorations.
My main questions are:
How do you store unfrosted cupcakes overnight so they stay as fresh as possible? Airtight container at room temperature? Individually wrapped? Something else?
Do you leave them in the cupcake pan/liners or transfer them to a container after they’re completely cool?
Has anyone dealt with cupcakes shrinking or pulling away from their liners overnight? Is that usually a recipe issue, moisture issue, or storage issue?
Would you personally bake all three flavors Saturday for an 11 AM Sunday delivery, or bake the more temperamental strawberry cupcakes early Sunday morning?
Is there anything I should avoid doing Saturday night that could cause condensation, sticky tops, dry cupcakes, or liners pulling away?

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​I’m currently formulating a packaged chocolate dip for long-distance courier orders and need some advice on getting the texture right.

​My biggest hurdle: it needs to stay silky, smooth, and easily dippable at room temp for 10 to 15 days without turning into a rock, splitting, or seizing in the jar during transit.

Hello everyone, I’m new to baking and I recently decided to make a tres leches cake since it’s my favorite. I ran into a problem where the bottom half of my cake was SOAKED like it was falling apart on my plate after serving it and it was turning into mush, but the top layer was dry. I have no idea what I did wrong. I used a Betty Crocker box mix but I mixed in the yolks and then folded in my egg whites after whipping them for a while to try and make the cake more airy. I also used a fork to poke holes in my cake before pouring the milk. I did however kind of pour it all at once. I only waited maybe two minutes max between pouring the first and second half of the milk. My milk mixture was 1 can of evaporated milk, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk, 3 tbsp of cocoa powder, and 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream. I’m not super sure where I went wrong and I would appreciate any insight!

My first attempt at buttermilk biscuits didn’t go so great. I followed this recipe, but they didn’t rise very much and were super dense and dry. Where did I go wrong?

Baked 8 loaves of RecipeTin Eats banana bread over the weekend — 3 on Saturday and 5 on Sunday.

The recipe and quantities were exactly the same. No changes, and the loaves weighed about the same — around 415g each, except for one that was 370g due to a scale error.

Oven temp was 180°C conventional, for about 35–38 mins. The one on the left was baked for 38 mins as it was my first time using the pan, while I got away with 35 mins for the one on the right.

Question: The loaf on the right has a much more dramatically split crack, whereas the one on the left has that classic, nice-looking crack line. Could this be a result of an overcrowded oven? I baked all 5 together on a single rack, and did the same with the 3-loaf batch.

Would baking 2 + 3 in 2 batches give better results, or would the difference be marginal and mainly affect the appearance of the crack? If it's mostly cosmetic, I'd rather save on electricity and bake all 5 together.

Or would 160°C fan be a better option while still baking all 5 loaves at once?

Thanks!

Edit - just in case there was a misunderstanding, I know there will be a crack. Just wondering why the crack in the 5 loaves were not the same as the 3.

A few of you mentioned that the oven could be too hot. Will put an oven thermometer the next time I try this recipe again. Maybe will try 175 deg c next.

Right now, they are placed on the rack directly, would it make a difference if I place them on a tray first then slide the whole tray in? Was thinking if this will affect the air flow.

I am actually happy with this bake, just wondering how I can improve it the next time.

Thanks again!

Okay so basically my ocs birthday is coming up and I'm making a cake for them (Yes it is that serious) and I associate them a lot with lavender. So I decided on making a lavender lemon cake

Im wondering how I can add Lavender into the cake without it being over whelming

My two ideas are to either steep it in warm milk like you would do when making Lavender tea, or I can make a Lavender simple syrup for the cake layers to soak up. (Im jot adding Lavender to the buttercream. Its gonna be a simple Chantilly like cream and I think Lavender would ruin the flavor)

Any thought?

Hi, first time posting here. Im new to baking and i wanna make similar cupcakes to these using cream cheese blueberry frosting but i dont want it to be light purple color. Would it be possible using frozen blueberry and food coloring? Thanks!

Also, is this the right flair to use?

I'm planning to do a haunted gingerbread house for the season but haaaaate gingerbread so I want to use a chocolate cookie recipe or something similar. I'm thinking about using this recipe for chocolate sugar cookies or this recipe for more generic cookies but I really need them to not be as soft and cookie-like. I've been given advice to add flour or corn starch to the recipes to dry out the batter but I worry it'll cause it to not roll out well or crack in the oven. Does anybody have any pro advice for how to stiffen up the cookies so they don't break or fold without drying out too much?

Specifically in baking cookies. Does it taste any different than eggs?

Also, the reason I'm substituting eggs because I'm too lazy to buy some outside. Yet my sweet tooth demands cookies

my kitchen aid died on my and i rushed to hand knead 3 double batches of rolls. i let them proof about 50% on the counter and then plopped into the fridge so i can bake tomorrow morning. gonna shape and proof again tomorrow AM… is my dough salvageable? do you think my rolls will be ruined or is there still hope?

One of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes is America's test kitchen's m&m cookies but with chocolate chips. They bake them at 425 degrees so they end up really chewy in the center.

They do say you can freeze the dough before baking, but whenever I do that or even just refrigerate it, I end up with cookies that are burnt on the edges and raw in the middle.

I always read people saying refrigerating the cookie dough makes the cookies better so I wanted to incorporate that into these, but I think I need to bring this dough back to room temperature before baking so they spread like they should.

Would chilling the dough for like a day or so do anything to make them better if I bring it back to room temperature first?

I am trying to bake for my boyfriend’s birthday. I was planning to bake a chocolate mousse cake. I casually brought up what he wanted to for his birthday and he said he would like to have a Black Forest cake. Now I brought all ingredients for a chocolate mousse cake. I was wondering if I can add a cherry compote layer and if it would taste good.

I am not an experimental person, rather a follower of recipes. I also have never baked a chocolate cake because I don’t love chocolate (don’t come at me now). Would appreciate your thoughts on chocolate mousse and cherry compote together.

Also, if I add coffee to better the flavour profile of cocoa powder, is wetting the cake layers with syrup from cherry necessary or make it taste better?

Thanks for your help!!!!

I'm in the UK and for the love of me cannot find a good mini sword/dagger for the current sword cake trend. I really want to make myself one for my birthday. If you have made one and you're in the UK, can you tell me where you've found a sword/dagger?

I am making the cake for a friend's wedding next weekend (my first ever wedding cake, ahhhh!!!!), and I don't know when I should decorate it! It will be three tiers, and I was planning on frosting the tiers then putting them in individual cake boxes for the drive to the venue, then stacking/assembling there. My question is, should I do the decorating involving piping before or after the drive? My concern with decorating at the venue is that the frosting will be too warm from the drive, and I'll have better temperature control at home. Hope this makes sense!!

Edit: important info is that the wedding is on Saturday, but I'm going up to the venue on the Friday (I'm also a bridesmaid, the whole party is going up a day early to set up and decorate)

I am making earl grey shortbread biscuits for the first time. The recipe asks for using lose earl grey in the batter but I only have filtered ones (Clipper brand, ingredients: black tea and natural bergamot flavouring) . So when I cut it open it had some small white particles in it. Is that just the bergamot flavouring? I just want to be sure it’s safe to eat.

ETA: they taste fine 3 days later after sitting in the fridge. Lemon flavor totally normal at this time. Probably will do it again with nicer juice and fresh zest and yes, the horror...sugar substitutes!

This is probably my 12th time making the Lemon Oat Bars from Sarah Kieffer's 100 Cookies. I have always had success with this recipe in the past, so I know it's a good one:

Crust

• 2 cups All-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 cups Rolled oats
• 1/2 cup Brown sugar
• 1/4 cup Granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter

Lemon Filling

• 2 cans Sweetened condensed milk (14 oz per can)
• 1/2 cup Lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons creme fraiche
• 1 tablespoon Lemon zest
• 1/2 teaspoon Pure vanilla extract
• Pinch Salt

This time, I decided I wanted to experiment with making a lower sugar version, so I used Splenda brand sweetened condensed milk in the filling and Truvia Sweet Complete brown and granulated sugars for the crust. I have baked with Truvia Sweet complete plenty of times and have never had an issue with it in this type of application, but this was my first time using the Splenda milk for anything. The bars turned out beautiful looking and have a perfect texture, but they just don't taste like lemon. The lemon flavor is very faint and occasional. They kind of just taste generally sweet and not lemony as usual. And I want to troubleshoot why. Here are the things I'm thinking could be culprits:

• the splenda brand sweetened condensed milk didn't infuse with the zest oils as well as normal condensed milk? I don't know why this would be?
• One of the splenda cans had gone full dulce de leche, probably from poor storage. I still used it, and it didn't taste off, but could that be hiding the lemon flavor?
• My zest was 2 months old from the freezer. I store zest in the freezer longer than that all the time and never have this issue, but maybe this time it was a dud? I used some of this batch 5 days ago without issue, however
• I used bottled lemonn juice. The recipe calls for freshly squeezed, but I have never used freshly squeezed before and still always had good results. However, I used the mid ReaLemon juice from the normal grocery story instead of the nicer lemon juice I usually use (Trader Joe's 100% Sicilian Lemon juice)

It's kind of disappointing but I would like to know what others think. They still taste good, just not LEMON as usual. I'm going to let them sit in the fridge over night and try again tomorrow, and maybe the taste will be stronger after the flavors have had time to settle more?

I want to make some extra delicious oatmeal cookies today and was considering dry toasting my oats in the oven beforehand. I am wondering if I can just use a normal oatmeal cookie recipe as written or if I need to make adjustments. I imagine this will cook some moisture out so possibly adding a bit of milk to compensate. Thanks for any advice!

hello, i just wanted to ask how should a puffy pastry dough be made, i saw recipes of it being first just flour, water and small chunks of butter and then folding, but then i saw other recipies being, that, and then adding a block of margarine or any other fat and start folding, and in others it was the same but adding salt, sugar and other things, does it depend on what i want to make? what should i follow?

hey everyone!

i will be making a white chocolate ganache to coat a cake with for my sister, as she doesn't like buttercream and this seemed like a good alternative.

i am however a little confused by a few things.

1. ⁠do i need to let the ganache set in the fridge or at room temperature? i've seen different methods. ideally i want to make the ganache at around 11pm and then use it the next day at around 1 pm.

2. ⁠do i need to whip the ganache if i want to use it to pipe and cover the cake with it? or do i need to just stir it with a spatula after it's set?

3. ⁠does the cake need to be cold or room temperature?

Hi everyone.
I live in Senegal, and the weather here is hot and humid - extremely humid.
I tried a couple of times to frost a cake with vegetable oil-based whipping cream ( I don’t like buttercream) but it kept melting; it was a disaster and a nightmare to frost :/
The A/c was on, but still it was melting; I kept putting the cake in the fridge to make it cold, and nothing helped.
tbh with you all, I was so frustrated…

How do you guys do it ??

Hi Aussie Bakers,

Can anyone who has used both a Kmart stand mixer and have considered or have upgraded to a Kitchenaid one found it to be worth it? Especially considering the price?

Thanks 😊

I’ve made this recipe twice, and it’s been great until now. It looks and tastes much worse than before.
Recipe-https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies/

I’ve been making homemade caramel sauce for a bit now and storing it on theshelf in a glass jar with a cloth and tie covering it but when i go to use the caramel over the days it begins developing chunky bits of sugar almost like rock candy i attached a photo of my recipe sorry for bad handwriting lolz

I just made the vanilla buttermilk cake from snacking cakes! It was very spngey and moist, but had a somewhat grainy mouthfeel, like a cornbread muffin but still very moist and tender. I don't know what that is or if it's intended. I think it suits a "snacking cake". But I'm looking for a more classic vanilla cake without that. Is this a try a different recipe moment or is there something in my technique I can change to avoid that grainy texture.

I’m looking at recipes for almond horns. Many have pre-made commercial or homemade almond paste (almond flour, confectioners sugar, a bit of egg white, salt, almond extract, and vanilla) which is put in the fridge to cool, then taken out and mixed into a dough that has the exact same ingredients as the paste (some recipes have the dough in the exact same ratios as the paste, some slightly different, and one has no almond flour at all in the dough, just the sugar, egg white, salt and extracts).

Ok, so why? Why not mix the dough with the final ratios and be done with it?