Cupcake liners, those colorful paper cups you fill with delicious treats, help to keep your cupcakes from drying out after baking. They add color and personality to your favorite cupcakes, allowing you to fine-tune a holiday or celebration theme. Unfortunately, the wrong cupcake liner, the wrong cake mix or recipe, or the wrong cooking techniques can cause some liners to fade and lose their personality and color. With a few simple tricks, you can keep them vibrant and eye-catching.
Step 1
Choose cupcake liners labeled grease-proof, foil or glassine. The design of these cupcake liners helps to minimize color fading when baking. If you want the look of paper, look for paper liners that have a foil interior.
Step 2
Place your cupcake liners inside the compartments of your cupcake or muffin pan. Fill with your desired cake batter and cook as directed. Begin testing your cupcake for doneness a few minutes before the recommended cooking time. Test your cupcakes for doneness by placing a toothpick in the center of the cupcake. If the toothpick comes out clean, cooking is complete. Do not overcook your cupcakes as overcooking can scorch the cupcake liners, resulting in alterations to the color. Remove the cupcakes from the oven when cooking is complete.
Step 3
Remove your cupcakes from the pan and place them on a cooling rack immediately after removing the pan from the oven. Allowing the cupcakes to sit in the pan to cool creates steam underneath the cupcakes. This additional moisture can alter the color of the cupcake liners.
- If you are worried about color fading, test any new liners with a single cupcake or two before baking a full batch.
- Consider the cake batter you are using and the color of your liners. Light cake batters, such as white cake mix, work best in light-colored liners. Dark batters, such as chocolate, can show through light-colored liners, leading to a change in color appearance. In dark liners, dark batter can help to intensify the color of the liner.
- If, despite your best efforts, your liners continue to fade in color, bake your cupcakes in plain white liners, removing them from the pan immediately after cooking is complete. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely and then, leaving them in the white liners, slip them into the decorative liners before serving.
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