I just made my first batch of mini cupcakes and I've got to say, seems like such a waste of time, liners & batter! I've been making cupcake bouquets with standard sizes and thought I'd give the minis a try since I saw a few photos and comments. It's hard to tell from the photo how small they really are! Am I missing something? What do you who make them use them for?

I make minis when I am making a couple of different kinds for a dessert table. I find that when I make full-size with a variety of flavors, there is a tendency for people to take one of several flavors, even if they won't eat that much. I guess they don't want to miss out on a flavor. With minis, people can try several kinds, and I can better estimate how many I need to make for the number of people attending. I hope this makes sense. I am foggy from bronchitis (and meds for the bronchitis).

They are wonderful when you are making an assortment of mini pastries. You can also decorate and top them differently so they are very versatile.

menas: im going to take a try at making a cupcake bouquet...mind sharing any pointers? thanks.

Sorry this is an overflow from another thread about the mini liners pulling away but it sounds like you gals have success with minis. What liners do you all use that work?

What do you charge for the minis? I've felt the same way about the time-cost... So much more consuming than with regular cupcakes!

I charge $5/dozen for mini cupcakes and make them a LOT it seems.

My biggest seller is for the cupcake bouquets using minis (I get about 30 in a bouquet) and sell the bouquet for $25.00. Costs me all of $5.00 in supplies (including the container!) So I love when I get orders for them!

I also use my mini cupcake pan to make Indydebis delicious peanut butter cup tarts (as I call them) you take peanut butter cookie dough and stick a ball of it in your mini cc pan, bake for about 8 min. until just browning around edge, take them out and immediately shove a reese's peanut butter cup (mini one) into the center and push down making the cookie come up around it, allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from pan. I get TONS of orders for these cookies for Christmas/graduation cookie trays!

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=672414&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

check out this thread all the directions are in it!

Here is an idea for you....
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1244701.html

I'm envious of everyone who DOES get requests for standard size cupcakes! The party planner that I make cc's for only wants mini cc's because people won't eat the full size cc's....for engagement parties it's usually all about finger food and mini bites of things so the minis work perfectly...and I don't find them to be more work - on the contrary the work surface of the cupcake is smaller so that means I have less suface to worry about covering with flowers and other decorations.....I would love to have a request for the bouquets I am seeing on this post - gorgeous.

Oh, AND, lol,, MY standard cupcake pans and liners are the ones sitting unused in my cabinet - I can't keep enough mini liners stocked!

I love mini cupcakes. I do all my cupcake bouquets in them because they seem to hold better for me. I also think they're dantier. I think a regualr cupcake is a a lot of cake but my friend always asks me to make her giant cupcakes for favors so I think it's just preference. My only complaint about minis is one batch of batter makes a TON if minis so as a hobby baker I can't usually make multiple flavors.

Oh I love minis! I just make about 100 of them for a bridal show I did yesterday. It is so easy to make. I make them from scratch and use a small ice cream scooper to get them in the pan without making a mess. Also any craft store like Joann, Michaels or AC Moore have mini cupcake liners. They are pretty cheap you can get like 100 or so for like $2.00. Also if the liners are pulling away you might not be letting them cool down long enough before storing them. That has happened to me with regular cupcakes and it is from the moisture of the cake making it separate. It is a true pain in the butt! I charge about $1.00 for the minis which I think is pretty fair being that I charge $2.00 for regular cupcakes (depending on the flavor) and about $3.50 for jumbo cupcakes.

I use white cake as my "base" and add flavorings to it for my other flavors

lemon
strawberry
blueberry
creamsicle
white choc.
white choc. raspberry
white caramel
pumpkin spice
carrot

KHalstead, every time I see your bouquets I am in awe, your work is so beautiful.

Khalstead, do you do that with a single batch? Do you just wing the flavoring? add to taste? I usually change my liquids to do my flavorings so I could never really figure out how to do it small batches.

Great thanks for the deatails. I'm hoping to find a way to make multiple flavors out of 1 batch of WASC I'm definately going to try some of your flavors though.

Do you use pudding in all of your mini-cupcake recipes?