I love to bake cupcakes, but I feel like I haven't mastered the art of it exactly. The middles of the cupcakes always rise to much, so it formes some kind of a dome. It looks nice, but its all cracked and stuff, and its hard to decorate that way.
In the gallery here I see al you guys have perfect flat-topped cupcakes, which expand a bit to the sides, like some kind of UFO-shape. How do you do that?! I don't think I mix too long, and the recipe is pretty plain too. Could it have something to do with my oven? I have a combination of an oven and a microwave, I don't know if you guys have such ovens over there as well. I would really appreciate some help on this, thanx!

Not sure what you mean about a combo oven / microwave. Best advise I can give is to not over fill them... you will need to experiment with what is the right amount with each recipe and similarly to a full cake... place it in the middle of the oven... never to high in the oven... and don't be tempted to open the door ahead of time.

Where are you from...???/

Here is a link to a thread on the very same topic. Hope it helps

Lazy_Susan
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-15843-.html

Thanx for the quick response, I had used the searc option on this but hadn't looked that far back apparently, lol. Thanx!
I'm from the Netherlands by the way, so maybe my oven is a European speciality ?

When I pull mine out of the oven I put a cutting board on top of them to squish them just a bit so they're all evenly flat. You need to do this the minute they're out of the oven or else it won't work.

I asked about this last week too and with the batch I made Wednesday night, I put a dessertspoon full into each muffin case (instead of one and a half), some were still a bit overfull and did rise into that pointy little dome in the middle of the cake and cracked, but the ones that had that half inch less in them, the tops were just rounded off no dome, no crack and I noticed in all of these the cake level was just below the actual top of the cupcake case.

Long winded but I hope I got that across. I always used to bake my cupcakes at 200 C but these I did at 180, so that might have helped too.

I have a cupcake wedding cake to do in june, silver foil cases, I actually didn't realise they would affect the cooking. 180 cupcakes to do and royal ice flat, so I have to get this right by then! They will be eating cupcakes in our house till their eyes pop, lol.

I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF PUTTING CUTTING BOARDS ON TOP OF CUPCAKES OR CAKES. SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA...I WILL HAVE TO TRY THAT!

LES

I put my heavy wooden cutting board right on top of the muffin tin as soon as it comes out of the oven.They all flatten to the same height.You only need to do this for a minute or so.

Cali4dawn has a tutorial on CCC.

Here is the link...
http://community.webshots.com/album/105830324epGFhn

I too, place a heavy glass cutting board on the cupcakes so they will level out evenly. Sometimes I will place a heavy mixing bowl on that too.

If you feel the cupcake liner 1/2 full it should bake to the top of the liner and give you a flatter top. If you fill it 2/3rd full it will give ya the hump.

I always use a ice cream scoop to make my cupcakes so I don't have to worry about over filling them.