Mini-cupcake Offload: Pan Type & Prep, Batter Amt

In case the blog article title seems oddly abbreviated, my intent is to minimize the number of characters but still convey the topic, related to my previous article about offloading fudge. For that experiment, I contrasted spray oil vs. spray oil and powdered sugar for offloading fudge, using mini-cupcake silicone and aluminum pans. That dessert requires no baking, thus, use of powdered sugar for prepping some of the pan cavities.

Initially, my experimentation idea this time was using liner papers for mini-cupcakes after baking them. The first time I tried a mini-cupcake recipe and used a silicone pan, I poured the batter into paper-lined cavities. The paper boundaries, nearly vertical, were more challenging for avoiding spills at edges. The baked cakes were instantly and easily removable. Unfortunately, some cake tend to stick to the papers, lessening the edible amount.

So, this time around, was going to only contrast spray oil vs. spray oil and flour in baking Choco Cherry Choco Chip mini-cupcakes. But then, I also wanted to see how well mini-cupcake paper liners fit the baked cakes if I varied the amount of batter—underfill (level tablespoonful) and common fill (rounded tablespoonful).

I had intended on using only silicone pans, After prepping and one of them and putting it in the oven, it occurred to me that the baking process was going to take a lot longer if I switch out several pans' worth. So, I pulled out the aluminum pans and prepped and filled them also. The second oven batch took aa bit of arranging and rearranging, with the second silicone pan and three aluminum pans. I balanced one metal pan on an oven rack ledge and another pan's edge.

The original recipe I modified for the mini-cupcakes is Cherry Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cake. Lucky Leaf pushed its canned pie filling.

A more elaborate recipe that uses chocolate cake mix is Chocolate Cherry Cake, but the baker uses the chocolate chips for the frosting and none in the cake itself.

An extremely elaborate recipe is from SugarWinzy—Cherry Chocolate Chip Layer Cake. Her one-off recipe for cupcakes is Chocolate Chip Cherry Cupcakes. My eyes glazed over from the number of ingredients and artistry.

The simplest recipe would have been using only one flavor of cake mix, but I wanted my batch to be more like milk chocolate cake. Ingredients from the Lucky Leaf recipe and my deviations:

1 16.25-ounce box white cake mix (I used 1/2 box *each* of chocolate and white cake mixes.)
3 eggs
1 21-ounce can LUCKY LEAF Regular or Premium Cherry Pie Filling (I used a different brand.)
1 cup mini chocolate chips (I used regular size chips.)

Instead of using either a bundt cake or oblong pan, I used the silicone and aluminum mini-cupcake pans, baking at 350 for only about 16 minutes each batch. I also skipped the icing part of the recipe. I considered the cakes (yield of 84) to be sweet enough naked, with less work, fewer ingredients, fewer calories.

The spray-oil only method of prepping the pans resulted in fewer instances of cakes sticking to pans than using both spray oil and flour. Originally, I wondered if the papers might be undersized with the bigger post-baked cakes. I was happy to see that the papers hugged well. Maybe the pleats of the sides help accommodate mini-cupcakes for perimeter and volume. The baking session yielded 84 mini-cupcakes.

Try the "Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes" recipe. Besides putting in a pixstrip for step-by-step instructions, I also talked about muffin vs. cupcake. Also visit Square Mini and Whoopie Muffin Experiment, the recipe where I contrast square mini-muffins and whoopie muffins for shape.

Which Pumpkin Pie?

Decisions, decisions, decision, varying mostly for labor intensity for getting a pumpkin pie. I wanted to find a pretty pumpkin pie picture that I wouldn't get into copyright problems over. My image is two colored ovals and arced text that I used Microsoft Word's Word Art feature for creating.

The easiest way to get a pumpkin pie is buy it at a bakery or grocery store. Pay your bucks and take it. Might be iffy trying to buy one on Thanksgiving day itself, so buy the day before. The alternative to the easy way depends on the energy you want to expend and time you want to allot for acquiring ingredients and preparing the pie. Two main components of the pie are the pie shell and the filling, with the filling subdividing into canned and scratch pumpkin.

Pie Shell
A pie shell for pumpkin filling should be flour-dough. You can make one from a scratch recipe, which calls for flour, fat (butter or shortening), water, and elbow grease using a rolling pin and pastry blender. Or you can buy a refrigerated shell that you unroll and lay into a pan. Or you can buy a frozen shell that's already preformed into an aluminum pie pan. Either option usually comes in sets of two. A crumb-crust shell is not suitable. A flour shell acts as a liner during baking, not so for a crumb crust. Least work—the frozen pie shell.

Pumpkin Pie Filling
The pumpkin pie filling can be fresh pumpkin that you extract the meat from—cutting the rind off, removing the pulp, and shredding or grating the meat. A jack o'lantern from Halloween works, if it's not moldy. Or you can buy a pumpkin at the store as the BIG EVENT approaches. You can buy canned pumpkin. The fresh-pumpkin approach is very labor intensive, but tends to be less expensive than the very convenient canned pumpkin. YMMV. Least work—the canned pumpkin.

Spices
I pretty much knew about cinnamon and nutmeg, just would need to look up quantities. Saw recipes that also called for allspice. What the heck is allspice? The about.com explanation looks pretty thorough.

Candidate Recipe for Convenience
One recipe I encountered lately was in the Parade Sunday paper insert. Looked convenient to make, but the small, 6-point font bugged me. You McCormick people! Really???? 6-point font? Alienating a lot of older folks who have baked pies and might be turned off at the effort required to READ the ingredients and process? Well, I had torn out the recipe anyway, but decided to look for it online. Voila! Bigger font, and numbered steps at the Signature Pumpkin Pie Recipe. The big conveniences are the pre-formed pie shell, canned pumpkin, condensed milk, and McCormick's Pumpkin Pie spice. (You'll pay for the convenience of having all the spices in one jar.) The only additional ingredient is eggs. Hmm, I might make this pie, but maybe not this Thanksgiving Day.

For the record, over the years, I've made pies with scratch pie shells (cheap to make, but a lot more effort than pre-made shells.) I've used fresh pumpkin only, just because I've liked knowing the filling came from a pumpkin I acquired. I don't recall having used condensed milk, but maybe because I haven't baked a pumpkin pie in a few years and don't remember.

Which Pumpkin Pie?
For me this Thanksgiving Day, none of the above. I'm baking mini-cupcakes that have chocolate chips, chocolate cake mix, cherry pie filling, and three eggs. The recipe will be a variation of the Lucky Leaf recipe for Cherry Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cake. Besides using chocolate cake mix instead of white, I'll also deviate from the recipe by making mini-cupcakes instead of a bundt cake.

November 26, 2014—
Visit "McCormicky-Libbyish Pumpkin Pie" about the hybrid-recipe pie that I DID bake.