Hello all, I need some advice. I've started a cupcake baking business and have developed reliable and consistently good results with all of my recipes so far - with the exception of the chocolate cakes. The problem is that on cooling after baking, the cakes seem to shrink away from their papers - or the papers detach themselves from the cakes - and the result is very unprofessional looking.

I have tried several different recipes - victoria sponge, substituting cocoa powder for some of the flour; victoria again but mixing the cocoa powder with hot water to make a paste; a recipe from a good book using melted chocolate; another good book recipe using a different balance of ingredients giving a slightly moister batter.

I always remove the cakes from the baking pan as soon as I can handle them and leave them to cool on a wire rack - someone suggested that leaving them in the pan to cool would create condensation and cause the papers to detach, but I never do this.

I've tried using different weights of cake papers - the cheap supermarket ones and the more rigid, expensive craft shop ones - same result with both, so it can't be that.

My oven is totally reliable, and as I say, I get consistent results with all my other cakes.

Can anyone make any suggestions as to what's going wrong and why? Perhaps you could offer me your foolproof recipe?

Grateful for any help!

Wow!!! I've been there so I can totally relate. Sometimes it can be the liners that you use. I've now switched to Reynolds because they are so reliable. I've also noticed that if I underbake them, they can start to shrink up and pull away from the liner. Also if your cupcakes are too moist, it can cause shrinkage as well. I've also used aluminum liners at times for really moist cupcakes and have no problems. I hope this info helps and that you are able to figure this out. Keeping my fingers crossed for you

I always use the same recipe for my chocolate cupcakes and chocolate buttercream and have never had any problems And everyone that tries them loves them but I know when I was making strawberry cheesecake cupcakes they pulled away so I think it is the moisture that contributes to this
I may be wrong lol

Hi, I'm not sure what specifically I do that works, but I've found I haven't had this problem lately, so I'll go through my chocolate cupcake routine and see if theres anything you can take from it:

I usually make a chocolate cupcake that includes some extra liquid i.e. coca cola cupcakes or stout cupcakes- very mosit so the case actually sticks to the cake very well.

I have used a few different cases with no issues. I use either a silicone pan or metal- again, both work fine.

I take the cakes straight out and cool on a wire rack, but i do make sure I push them up against each other because I'm so paranoid about the cases coming off!

That's pretty much it, and liek I said- it seems to work for me! Hopefully you can get some ideas from that?

The one time I had an episode of cases coming away was when i used a very basic chocolate recipe which produced quite a solid cake, whereas the ones I make now are so moist they stick to your fingers when you're eating them.