The weekend saw my first major-league cupcake DISASTER!!
I had used a new recipe 2 weeks ago – the Primrose Bakery vanilla cupcake recipe.
It was a good recipe and resulted in a good textured cupcake. More akin to the shop-bought cupcakes than I have managed to get in my attempts so far.
I’m not sure if it was because the recipe used a larger quantity of all-purpose flour in relation to self-raising flour, or because when it came to adding the flour and milk the recipe said “beat”, so I dispensed with the folding technique and just carried on using my electric beater.
Anyway, I used the same recipe again at the weekend.
I thought when I was spooning the mixture into the cake cases that it didn’t look, or feel right. Then the cakes didn’t rise as much as normal.
I had no inkling anything could be wrong.
But the cakes were so YUCK, even SC couldn’t eat them. He took one mouthful, look puzzled, then took a smaller mouthful, before spitting it out and saying “YUCK! These are disgusting!”
I was at a loss. I had used the same recipe, what could possibly have gone wrong?
I narrowed it down to 2 possibilities:
1. I had used different sugar. I replaced my light brown sugar with fruit sugar – natural sugar where you need to use one-third less.
or
2. I had done something wrong in the mixing process.
I had also made a batch of rock cakes that morning using the fruit sugar – yes, Saturday is a good morning. The kitchen always smells scrummy!
The rock cakes had turned out fine, and tasted good.
So, I don’t think it could have been the use of a different sugar.
Where had I, then, gone wrong in the mixing process?
The only thing I could think of that I had done differently was to keep the beater on whilst adding the flour and milk. I must have over-beaten it. I had no idea this was even possible to over-beat a cake!
When I was adding the last remnants of milk into the mixture it did keep clinging to the beater. I guess that should have given me a clue that something was wrong.
Still, we live and learn. One batch of bad cupcakes is not a total disaster, just a learning curve.
Note to self, don’t over-mix next time.
I did make another batch on Sunday morning, still using the beater but making sure I turned it off between flour and milk additions, and the cakes turned out perfectly 😉
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