If I bake cupcakes in the regular paper cups, the paper ends up folding INTO the cupcake. Or just look squished. Other than hiding this issue with pretty wraps and icing, are there any other tricks I can try so that my cupcakes look pretty even before getting "dressed up"?

TIA!

Either your pan is not sized for the liners, or your liners are too big. It can't be fixed. It just doesn't fit. You will need to find out if it is the pan or the liner. Do all liners do it? Then it's the pan. Hopefully it's just an odd liner.

If the base of the paper IS the same size as the base of your pan, then try putting the papers (empty) in your pan and placing them in the oven for a few minutes. Sometimes this helps them to reshape to the pan.

If that doesn't work it may be the quality of your papers. Or if the base size is different, as scp1127 suggested they are the wrong size for the pan.

I had a similar issue with the solid wilton liners. for one recipe they seemed too large for the pan and fiolded in. but for a different recipe they fit just fine.... I couldnt understand that not one bit. I cooked the second recipe they day after attempting the first (it was a failure thats why I redid it) But i noticed the second recipes batter wasnt as thick as the firsts either...

We make about 400 cupcakes a day. I find this happens when they are shoved in the sleeve from the manufacturer and come out a little wonky. But I know that my liners fit my pan. We get this every so often, but had one sleeve where the liners actually came out of it square instead of round. Thank goodness it was just the one sleeve. 95% of the time they are perfect.

As for the home market shopping size liners, it is definitely the pan/cup size difference thing.

If your liners don't touch the bottom of the pan when you place them in, they're flared out too much and will fold into the cupcake.

I cram my liners into a small cup or plastic container so the bottoms are flat and the sides are compressed as much as possible without distorting them. When I go to use them, they don't flare out and sit nicely in the pans.

I've heard of people just placing cupcake liners on a flat pan and it working out fine. Has anyone tried this? My first thought is that the liner is too flimsy to hold the batter and it'll spill over.

I have tried just using the liner on a pan but it did not work at all; some were okay; others changed shapes and were no longer round - I might mention was using the ones that were made for this - paid more money as I had 175 cupcakes and thought this would save time by using a cookie sheet and these more expensive (sturdy) cupcake liners..Never again.

I keep my liners in this thing so that they don't flare out.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XU49RW/?tag=cakecentral-20

As for using the liners on a pan, I haven't tried it, but if I ever need to bake somewhere else where my pans won't be available, I'll probably do it with baking rings to keep the shape. Kind of like this:

http://www.oneshetwoshe.com/2011/04/making-banana-muffins-in-bulk-perfect.html

Both extremely cool ideas, imagenthatnj!

hmmn thats a good idea I have those at the dollar store around my way Ill go pick one up 2mro

That is going on my shopping list!