This is what happened when I tried to bake scratch cupcakes...it was a Smores recipe I tried out and I followed it to a T ...They totally overflowed even tho I didn't overfill and then the centers sank in. What a mess!
I later doctored up a cake mix using ground graham crackers and had waaay better results! Look at my pretty doctored cupcakes, so yummy too...apple with mango buttercream, cherry cheesecake (part cupcake, part cheesecake and ALL yummy!), peanut butter with chocolate ganache and peanut butter with peanut butter icing (YOWZA!), and banana pecan with cinnamon buttercream.

YUMMY!

I tried a scratch recipe and I had the same results-- I think it was my butter?

Smiles,

val

PS Fedex me one of each!

Crazy messes aren't always the fault of the baker, y'know. I've been baking long enough to be able to look at a recipe and have a pretty good idea what the result will be, but the first few times you do it, you presume that because it was a published recipe, it's a balanced recipe...and not all bad recipes are online, lots of 'em are in cook books that have been around for ages

There should be a course for redress when you get a bad recipe.

I mean it should not be allowed remain in the public domain and should be named and shamed.

What a great idea for a website, bad recipes named and shamed!

It would save us all a lot of heartache and time and money!

Those look just like the red velvet cuppies I tried to make last week. I think I beat the sugar and butter for too long, it got too fluffy. I don't know, but they were beautiful until they came out of the oven and then they sank.

To bad the 1st ones didn't raise right. The finished cupcakes look great. I know I love the cake mixes.

The sunken cupcakes either have too much sugar or too much liquid. My quess would be too much sugar.

Cake troubleshooting charts:

http://tinyurl.com/2p5bdu

http://tinyurl.com/6c745g

http://tinyurl.com/32goqe

HTH

How frustrating, I had the same thing happen with a carrot cake recipie that I just love when I tried to make cupcakes with it. I like to use my own recipies but when you do use a mix you do get more consistant results.

My first thought was ..."she put her cookies too close together." Then I was like "those arent cookies." LOL I am sure the doctored ones tasted just as good as they looked! Yummy! A bad recipe is not your fault.


~Alicia

I've been baking cakes for 40 years and I will be the first one to tell you that mix is the way to go.

Some may disagree. I love doing things the old way but there are times I have to accept that we have come such a long way that old isn't alway the best.

In my book they have perfected the Mix.

Some recipes don't translate to cupcakes well (re: the carrot cake). When they over flow like that they lose their surface structure and then the middle has nothing to cling to and they fall. I know you don't think you over filled them, but you might have. Some recipes bake up higher than others. Could you post the recipe? Maybe we can look at it and see if it looks un balanced.

With all that being said.. if you like mixes and can get good results you shouldn't feel bad about that.

it is frustrating yeah i am definitely one that chooses to stick with the cake mix

I will never go back to baking cakes from scratch. Only my cookies, cheesecakes and others but not cakes. Your cupcakes look and sound yummy!!!

With the exception of my homemade applesauce cake (OBVIOUSLY) every scratch cake I make is dry! Too old to deal with frustration! Cake mixes EVERY time!

Beth in KY

Yum, yum! Will you share your recipes for the cupcake flavors?

Im a NEW stay at home mom, and my new hobby(obsession) is cakes. I want so badly to be able to bake from scratch, but its sooo hard. Box cake always comes out great!!