Burned Cupcake Bottoms

Decorating By chichizilla Updated 26 Nov 2012 , 6:43am by vgcea

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chichizilla Posted 24 Nov 2012 , 10:56pm
post #1 of 10

I haven't been doing cakes for very long, but today I received my first complaint and I feel absolutely horrible! The order was for a small two tiered cake and 48 cupcakes. The cakes felt fine when shaping/frosting them, but the woman texted me saying that all of the cupcakes were burned on the bottom and dry. Both recipes that I used are normally very moist, and I've never, ever burned a cake or cupcakes, even when I was in my high school culinary program just learning. They felt fine when I was holding them to frost them, and the only thing I can think that would have affected them was the liners I used. They were somewhat thin paper liners, white with a black damask design from Wilton. I'm not sure if that could make a difference, maybe them being so thin and the batter being closer to the hot pan or something... Has anyone else ever had this happen to them?! I baked mini cupcakes with the same vanilla recipe yesterday and cupcakes for Thanksgiving two days before that and they came out perfectly so I don't think that my oven is the issue. 

 

PS - Finding the "cake disasters" forum has already been a comfort and helped me realize that there are going to be flukes when making cakes/gradually starting a business, thank you everyone else who has posted past mistakes that we can all learn from!

9 replies
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kazita Posted 24 Nov 2012 , 11:18pm
post #2 of 10

AI don't know about burnt cupcake bottoms unless you baked them at to high of a immature.....I do know of a cupcake website that had great recipes, I have made ultimate vanilla one several times and they are yummy. Cupcakeproject.com

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chichizilla Posted 24 Nov 2012 , 11:41pm
post #3 of 10

I baked them at 350. I've used the same recipes for countless other occasions, both cakes and cupcakes.

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kazita Posted 25 Nov 2012 , 12:15am
post #4 of 10

ADid you let the pan cool down between each batch? Not real sure why they burnt

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kazita Posted 25 Nov 2012 , 12:28am
post #5 of 10

ASo I googled this and it says to put a cookie sheet underneath the cupcake pan while baking

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chichizilla Posted 25 Nov 2012 , 4:55am
post #6 of 10

AI used seperate pans for each batch. Thank you though! Ill try the cookie sheets next time. I'm just confused as to why this has never happened before but did this time. All I can think of that's different was the liners

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matthewkyrankelly Posted 25 Nov 2012 , 5:20am
post #7 of 10

Were they burnt, or did the coloring from the liners bleed into the cake.  I have found that some of the myriad of new/highly decorated liners leave a lot of color in the pan and on the cupcakes.  I would bake a test batch  to try and recreate the problem - if indeed there was.
 

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chichizilla Posted 25 Nov 2012 , 5:28am
post #8 of 10

AI think I might do that soon. I still have some of the liners left. I never even thought of that as a possibility. Also, reading through the cake disaster forum I've seen a lot of posts of customers possibly just wanting free cakes or not having the same perception of "moist". I used the same vanilla recipe for 100 wedding cupcakes in the past and the chocolate for 30 wedding cupcakes and both parties were pleased with them. I've also used the recipes with various other cake orders in the past, and like I said this was my first complaint. It's making nervous for my next order though lol

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MimiFix Posted 25 Nov 2012 , 3:59pm
post #9 of 10
Quote:
Originally Posted by matthewkyrankelly 

Were they burnt, or did the coloring from the liners bleed into the cake.  I have found that some of the myriad of new/highly decorated liners leave a lot of color in the pan and on the cupcakes.  I would bake a test batch  to try and recreate the problem - if indeed there was.
 

I agree that you need to test bake and look at the results. I also agree that (unfortunately) more and more people complain about anything, just to get money back.   

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vgcea Posted 26 Nov 2012 , 6:42am
post #10 of 10

I had this happen to me for the first time on Wednesday using different liners. The only thing I could come up with besides a 'too hot' oven was that I used two 1-dozen cupcake pans on the same level (rather than staggering them on two levels in the oven) leaving little room for the heat to circulate => hotter air on the bottom of the pans => overbaked bottoms.

 

Unless your liner bled, I don't see how paper liners can cause the bottom of your cupcakes to burn/darken. If that were the case foil liners would be impractical.

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