Fudge Offload: Silicone Vs. Aluminum Pans

In December, I spotted a post about fudge in The Blog Promoter LinkedIn group called Mama's Fudge Recipe, by Emily Powell. Fudge! Had to visit the site, as I myself make EZ minimal-ingredients fudge, such as "A Convenient Fudge" and "4-ingredient Raspberry Chocolate Fudge". Minimal ingredients are meltable candy, marshmallows, and frosting.

Emily's recipe contrasted with my recipes for list of ingredients and process. One of her pan preparation instructions that caught my eye was her use of Pam and flour, typically for a dessert to be baked. I asked her about it. She confirmed that the flour was raw. I am adverse to eating or serving raw flour, and wondered about dusting with powdered sugar instead of flour.for something that didn't need baking.

For my latest batch of EZ fudge, I tried spray oil and powdered sugar for two kinds of pans—a silicon rubber pan (24 square cavities) and aluminum pan (12 round cavities). Each square holds 5 teaspoons of filling; Each round (cup shape) holds 4 teaspoons. Natch, if you use these pans for cakes or muffins, pour only about a rounded tablespoon of batter to allow for expansion during the baking process. Some baking pans info:

• 24 (square) cavities silicone pan
• 12 (round) cavities aluminum pan (stamped single-piece)
• 24 (round) cavities aluminum pan (constructed w/cups attached to pan)

The pixstrip shows ingredients and pans, fudge mixture squeegeed into pans, ejected fudge pieces, and fudge pieces in paper liners in a box.

After I poured the fudge mixture into the prepared pans and cooling it in the refrigerator, I didn't get around to ejecting them until about four hours later. (Cooling time should have been about an hour or so.) The 3rd-panel pixstrip shows easy-out results with using the silicone pan, not so much with the aluminum pan. The plateful also shows nice shapes from the squares, but lots of misshapes and broken pieces from the rounds. Extraction from the silicone pan was not bad. I turned the pan upside down and pressed from the back. As for the aluminum pan, using the butter knife blade sometimes popped the shapes out ok, but most, not.

In the past, I've poured the fudge mixture into a spray-oiled 8 x 8 glass pan. After a couple of hours, I'd used a paring knife to cut it into 64 pieces. That task took some patience, as the mixture became dense. I'm not great at cutting consistent cubes, either.

I've concluded that using silicone pans for fudge—after prepping with spray oil and powdered sugar—provides good results. BTW, the fudge batch makes about 1 1/2 silicon pans worth (36 squares). The shapes fit very nicely into mini-cupcake paper liners for neatness, as the pixstrip shows in the last pixstrip panel.

Because the fudge squares fit so well in mini-cupcake papers, a future experiment will be baking mini-cupcakes in silicon pans that I prep with only spray oil instead of lining with papers, then seeing how well they fit each other after baking. I might need to underfill the squares with batter so the baked shapes don't bulge and fit the papers badly. (Typical mini-cupcake recipe calls for a rounded teaspoonful of batter.)

Related articles:

• Waits N Measures, Baking Pans N Papers (#87)
• Square Mini and Whoopie Muffin Experiment (#88)
• Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes (#70)
• Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Mini-muffins (#79)

Waits N Measures, Baking Pans N Papers

I'm big on baking. I bake frequently enough to know what I'm doing, but still need to consult with recipes online and in books for quantities, capacities, and baking times and temperatures. I use cake mixes frequently for cooky recipes. I fiddle around with modifying basic cake mix recipes. Sometimes I change up ingredients. Sometimes I use different pans than the recipes call for.

I've included a table for using different baking pan cavities—square mini-cupcakes, mini-cupcakes, regulation-size cupcakes, and mini-loaves. For measuring capacity, I pulled out the pans and poured amounts of water into a well of each pan. The table has wait (bake) times and measures. Dimensions, capacities, and baking times are approximate. (I did mention in Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes recipe that mini-cupcake baking time is about 25% less than for regular cupcakes.)

Shape	Dims (")	Capacity	Wells /Pan	#min@ 325-375°
square silicone	1 1/2 x 1 1/2 x 5/8 dp	1 1/3 T (4 tsp)	24	15-16
mini- cupcake	1 3/4 U dia x 1 1/4 L dia x 5/8 dp	Less than 2 T	12	13-17
whoopie	3 dia x 1/2 dp	4T	12	15-16
standard cupcake	2 3/4 U dia x 2 L dia x 1 1/16 dp	5T	12	15 to 20, 22 to 27
mini-loaf	3 5/8 x 2 3/8 x 1 1/8 dp	8 T (1/2 C)	9	TBD
3 teaspoons (t) per tablespoon (T), 16 T per cup (C), 77 fluid drops per teaspoon

Caution: Recipes say to fill the wells about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Remember to differentiate advised-fill from capacity. If you fill the wells to capacity, the batter will expand during baking and spill over, making a BIG mess!

Actually, I still need to test for wait time for mini-loaves. I bought that pan several years ago, but I have yet to try using it. Visit Cake Mix Doctor and Duncan Hines topic links.

I recently acquired a couple of whoopie pans. I used one of them and one of my silicone pans for experimenting with a muffin recipe that calls for cake mix. The cake mix powder itself was a modification—half Red Velvet (Duncan Hines) and half strawberry (coincidentally, but not significantly, Pillsbury). More on the recipe in an upcoming article.

If using a cake mix powder, the box usually seems to specify baking times for 2 round layers, regular cupcakes (24), and a 9 x 13 sheet. In my experience, the mini-cupcakes yield tends to be about 2 1/2 as many—60. My Lemon Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes recipe yielded 77 units. (I'm positive that adding 2 T poppyseeds didn't contribute to raising the yield past 60.) In trying out the square mini-cupcakes, the yield would have been 24. More on that Red Velvet and strawberry cupcake experiment in an upcoming article.

For those who bake, the table is handy for planning the number of small-size baked items (assuming using an 18 1/4 oz. box of cake mix), the amount of batter to pour in, and how long to bake them. I am disappointed to say that, out of the three national brands of cake mix, only Duncan Hines mix has 18 1/4 ounces of powder for the normal 2-layer or 9 x 13 sheet cakes. The other two brands contain 15 1/4 ounces.

In my Internet travels, cupcakes and muffins, particularly small ones, cause confusion because of their similarities. Cupcakes are small cakes. You beat the batter. The cupcakes tend to have frosting. Muffins are quick breads, and the batter is best stirred gently. Muffins tend to have crumbs or icing drizzle. "Cupcakes Vs. Muffins: An Epic Battle and Some Big Questions" is an extensive article about their differences.

Standard paper liners seem to be mini-cupcake or standard cupcake sizes. Want to be cost-effective? For starters, don't pay extra for fancy colors or designs. The list has some quantities and prices to consider. (If the price was $[something].99), I rounded it up.

• Michael’s (undiscounted—40% coupon available online)
• 100 sm/$2 (~2 cents each)
• 350 sm/$4 (~1 cent each)
• 75 standard/$2 (~3 cents each)
• 18 short crown 2 ½ dia/$2 (~ 5.5 cents each) Yow!
• Make It Sweet (in Austin)
• 100 sm/$2 (~2 cents each)
• 500 sm/$6 (~1.2 cents each)
• 75 standard/$2 (~3 cents each)
• 500 standard/$9 (~ 1.8 cents each)

Looking for an alternative to short crown papers? Get large muffin papers and trim to size. Watch Todd Wilbur obtain shorter paper liners (at about the 1:41 mark) for making his peanut butter cup clones. Sure, he uses standard cupcake liners, but you get the idea.

Another Todd Wilbur video shows how avoid buying a Twinkie-shape pans for his Twinkie clone recipe by wrapping aluminum foil pieces around a spice jar. Move your pointer to about the :56 mark.

Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes

My recipe calls for following the instructions for boxed lemon cake mix and adding two tablespoons of poppy seeds. Box mixes usually omit information about mini-cupcakes, which are about 1/3 the volume of regular cupcakes (2 1/2 x 1 1/4). The mini-cupcake size is 1 3/4 x 1. This article includes also includes mini-cupcake baking times, yields, and paper liner vs. oil vs. oil/flour methods.

Regular cupcake vs. mini-cupcake

Cake mix boxes usually indicate the yield to be 24 cupcakes. I have encountered recipes that hedge and claim 24 to 30 cupcakes. I have seen recipes claim that a box cake mix should yield 60 mini-cupcakes. My yield was 77, using the recommendation of slightly rounded tablespoon of batter for each pan well. Suggested baking times for regular cupcakes had a range of 15 to 20 minutes for the low end, and 22 to 27 minutes for the high end. If baking mini-cupcakes, use the regular cupcake baking time, but reduce it by maybe 25%. My batches came out fine at 13 to 14 minutes. As for oven temperature, from gleaning various recipes, 350° seems to be common.

Note: For a serving size between regular cupcake and mini-cupcake, cut each cupcake in half. Hypothetical yields per box cake mix batch can be 24 (regular cupcakes), 48 (regular cupcakes cut in half), and 60 (mini-cupcakes).

Paper liner vs. spray-on oil vs. oil/flour spray

In past experiences of using paper liners, it seemed like the paper did not cleanly separate from baked cupcakes without maybe 10% of the cake sticking to the paper. I don't know if the detachment problems were because of the cupcakes being regular size, or because of the cake mix formulation being from pre-pudding eras.

I was pleased that the paper peeled away from the mini-cupcake neatly. The method that yielded the least satisfying results was using spray oil with flour in it. The dispensing was not as easy as with using spray oil. The oil and flour spray method left a thin layer of baked cake inside the wells, and more than with using spray oil.

My pixstrip shows four sections:

1. Implements
2. Ingredients
3. Paper liners, oil spray, oil/flour spray
4. Baked mini-cupcakes

Implements

• mixer
• medium-large mixing bowl
• rubber spatula(s)
• measuring spoon
• measuring cup(s)
• mini-muffin pans (Use different size pans if desired, following baking time suggestions on the cake mix box.)
• cooling rack for done mini-cupcakes
• paper liners, spray oil, or spray oil/flour (Using paper liners yielded the best results for me.)
  Note: Greasing the bottoms of the wells is another batter lining method.

Batter ingredients

• 1 box lemon cake mix (~18 oz.)
• eggs, number as listed on cake mix box
• oil, amount as listed on cake mix box
• water, amount as listed on cake mix box
• 2 T poppy seeds

General instructions for all cake pan sizes (Have the cake mix box handy!)

1. Prepare the cake batter according to cake mix box instructions.
2. Fold in the poppy seeds.
3. Prepare baking pans by using paper liners, spray oil, or spray oil/flour.
4. Pour batter into the baking pan(s) of your choice.
5. Bake as recommended; however, if baking mini-muffins, reduce time by 25%. (Mine came out fine between 13 and 14 minutes.)
6. Test cake for doneness. If done, remove pan(s) from the oven.
7. Transfer cakes (or mini-muffins) onto cooling rack.

Calories and additional information

Total calories for the ingredients I used, the cake mix brand and flavor being the biggest variable, the calories totaled 2900, give or take a few. Dividing the number by my yield of 77 mini-cupcakes comes out to ~38 calories each. YMMV, depending on cake mix brand, egg sizes, and recipe that you use. Also, adding icing or frosting will increase the calories.

Note: The container of the poppy seeds that I bought recommended yellow cake mix and 1 tablespoon of lemon extract for another version of lemon poppyseed cake. I myself advocate minimal ingredients—lemon cake mix instead of yellow cake mix and lemon extract. If someone wants to try the alternate recipe, I would be interested in the contrast results.

Related: "Revisiting Lemon Poppyseed Mini-cupcakes" article | video