I have just started cooking cupcakes and find the cupcake papers seem to stretch after cooling and

look terrible.   They also don't rise very well despite following instructions to the letter.

What am I doing wrong?  I'm just using an ordinary packet mix. 

ANot sure about the cupcake wrappers but I make my cupcakes by scratch now after finding this site www.cupcakeproject.com ...love the ultimate vanilla cupcakes from their site

AI've read that to make cupcakes rise and get a dome is to have your oven on a higher temp like 375 for the first seven minutes than lower it to 325 for the rest of the time...

Ahttp://cakecentral.com/t/582525/how-about-a-thread-to-seriously-discuss-making-cupcakes

I pulled up a thread for you about cupcakes maybe reading through it will help you...:grin:

I started using an ice cream scooper to get an equal amount of batter in each cup they seem to dome nicely when baking and are more uniform.  I also found that if I cool the cupcakes completely in the pan itself the wrappers don't start pulling away on the sides it takes a little longer to make the cupcakes if your only using one pan at a time so I had to invest in a few more.  Hope this helps.

AI believe that the problem isn't that the cupcake papers are stretching, but at the cupcakes are shrinking as they cool. It may be that you are over-baking them a bit. Try pulling them out of the oven a few minutes sooner than you have been and see if it helps. :) Regarding not rising, did you check the best before date on the packet? It could be that the leavening is too old. Just a thought.

If you are over whipping the batter, it might cause this. Even if you aren't whipping it too long, if you're whipping it on too high a speed, the batter is over whipped. Sometimes when people upgrade their mixers, they don't realize they should be whipping on low, where they might have needed to mix on a high speed with the old mixer. Just a thought. Good luck :)