What ingredients do you find to be the BEST for EXCEPTIONAL cupcakes, such as the best vanilla, the best chocolate?? Master bakers please share your "secret" to making cupcakes special! Alot of cupcakes are good, I'm looking for FABULOUS WOW! Thanks in advance!

Sorry to say but it's through trial and error. Not over baking is the biggest issue. Getting them out of the over at just the right time and then getting them out of the baking trays straight away is very important.

But as far as recipes go, I bake from scratch and finding a really good vanilla and chocolate recipe can take awhile, because there are so many variables within the two flavours. It depends what type of vanilla cupcake you're after. They seem to be the most difficult flavours to nail. Having said that, I've found a great choc cc recipe but still trialing it to make sure I get the same results everytime I bake them.

As far as ingredients go, buy the best quality ingredients you can afford, especially butter and flour. I like to use brown sugar instead of white sugar in my chocolate cupcakes, seems to intensify the flavour. I'm still on the search for a really good vanilla cupcake recipe, Ive got a few that I go between but haven't found the 'go to' just yet.