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I decided to do a sorta scientific cupcake study (in my tiny apartment kitchen) in anticipation of a cupcake situation I'll be having in the near future (December) and share my results with you all. I took lots of pictures so it make take a second to load. For the record I am NOT a professional (I'm sure you can tell). I aspire to the hobby not the profession.

First I used kakeladi's WASC recipe. I made it exactly by the recipe except I used milk instead of water and no almond flavor, just butter and vanilla (we don't like almond). Store bought paper and foil cups, ice cream scook (the bomb) to put batter into cups.

*Just a hint, I have one of those Command removable clips stuck to the inside of my upper cabinet door that I just leave open when cooking and I can see the recipe at eye level.(Click on thumbnails for larger pictures)

In the same pans I put 2/3 cups full paper and foil cups, 3/4 cups full paper and foil cups. I want to see if there IS a difference.

I was testing:
Pan type: aluminum, non stick, silicone, size of cups in the CC pans
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Cup cake liners: Paper or foil
Batter Fill: 2/3 vs 3/4
Cook time

All this in trying to acquire a nice dome on a nice cupcake.

First the aluminum pan is a old well loved"Sears Best Bridesmaid" cupcake pan. It's pretty heavy. The second is just a simple non stick, garden variety cupcake pan. You can see the CC liners stand up above the aluminum pan but not the non stick one and the slicone one is very deep. The aluminum CC pans are the exact same size cup as Wiltons. The bottom on the aluminum pan measures 2 inches on the nose but the non stick is about 2 1/8.

Aluminum Measures approx 7/8th of an inch non stick approx 1 1/8th

The silicone one was way big, so I am going to skip that other than to say the cupcakes baked well.If you want a cupcake that has straight sides because it is way taller than the CC liner then that is the size for you.

CC liners filled with batter. See how far the liners stick up on the aluminum pan compared to the non stick? Does it matter? We shall see!

Started out at 400 degrees for 5 mins (then back down to 350 until done approx 25 mins) and here is what we have, notice some cracks coming. I was scared at this point..

Here they are a few minutes later (above), do you see some with cracks? Do you notice a pattern? The smoothest ones, up front, are 2/3 full and paper cups. All the foils ones have some cracks, though not all bad cracks. Just something I thought I'd mention. I also noticed that there isn't toooooo terribly much difference in height per pan so far.
The ones on the left row were 2/3 and paper cups. The second from the left row were 2/3 full foil cups, the next two rows were 3/4 full paper and foil.
The non stick pan, Left row 2/3 full, other two 3/4 (one each paper and foil)
Just a note I overcooked the CC just a little bit. I was thinking like breadmaking that to hold the "oven spring" (dome) I needed it to be a bit more cooked but that's only for bread I guess.

A little bit on the silicone. The "oven spring" on the silicone took a bit longer than 5 mins at 400, more like 7.
Here at 5 mins. Here at 7 mins. Cooked.
Front 4 rows are from aluminum pan in order, back 6 (1 missing) on left from non stick, on right from silicone.
Very straight up shape from silicone cups being so deep for the "standard" cups I had.
All the 3/4 filled foil ones tended to spread as much as they domed. They ended up only as tall as the 2/3 filled cups but spread and hung over the cups. The paper ones didn't do this.


OK that's my experiment and from my test, to my dismay and my pocketbook the best overall cupcakes came from my non stick pans (someone has them on sale this week gotta remember who). They were domed well and a tad bigger than the aluminum ones. And paper cups don't make the dome any bigger than foil but they tend not to crack which could lead to deflation. If I needed the foil cups for decorative purposes I'd use them but I'd be SURE to only go 2/3 full unless you want that overhang.

They taste GREAT! The store bought paper liners worked great, they weren't the grease proof ones but I think because this recipe doesn't call for ANY oil it worked out perfectly. No greasy papers even on the cheapo white liners. Not decorative unless you need white but definitely no issues in using them.

Thanks for the review. I got confused there, could you tell me which ones worked the best: the paper ones filled 2/3? or the ones filled 3/4 full? Thanks.

I'm trying to follow too. : ) Thank you for doing all of this work though, goodness you were busy. I'm working on the best filling size for my cupcake pans. 3/4 full overflows the pan and I get that awful overhang of browned and crispiness like your last picture.

I wonder if you could copy this to a Word document with the captions right with the pictures for easier reading. Would it let you attach a Word document here? Oh, just realized you have the pictures on Photo Bucket. Can you add captions for the pictures there?

Honestly, not sure how to do that but I will try to clean it up here. I was so scared that it was going to disappear before I got it posted! I've had that happen before. Type and type then have a burp and it's all gone! Let me see what I can do. I'm sorry it's confusing.

Just a note I didn't get the brown overhang, even with 3/4 full when using paper liners, only with foil.

Thank you for all your hard work. This is very interesting. I hate to throw a monkey wrench in this, but I have to say, when I make CC's, I set the oven at 350 then once it's heated up; turn it back to 325. I fill the jumbo cups 2/3 full, and I use both the paper and the foil cups at the same time. I do not have any cracking and they always dome up. I also throw in a tablespoon of meringue powder into the cake mixture for added rising. This is in addition to the eggs that are called for in the recipe. I've tried the silicon and did not like them.

thank you justtoeatcake... for all that hard work.. i am sure it will help a lot of people that want to make c/c..... thanks again

Thanks again Justtoeatcake!!

Enchanted- do you use a particular brand of meringue or is the Wilton's fine to use?. I have some left from my classes. lol

awesome...thanks for this!!!

Thank you for this information! I really appreciate the time you put into this w/ pictures, directions, etc.

Every time I read an update on this thread it makes me want to bake cupcakes. Knock it off, I'm on a diet! LOL!

No silly, you did great! It's just the way it posted on the website here that it got confusing!