I know I have seen an article/forum on this topic somewhere, but now I cannot find it!!! I am wondering how in the heck to get cupcakes to dome while baking? I have attempted it and got some what of a dome but I want it bigger? Am I not putting enough batter in the cups or am I cooking at the wrong temp? Like I said I have seen something posted a few months back but now I can't find it? Please help!!! THANK YOU

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and then after 10 minutes lower it to 350. This makes the outside bake faster and cause the cupcakes to dome.

HOWEVER -
I did this on my last batch of cupcakes. There are other factors. I made two batches. I used three different pans. One was a dully aluminum surface, the second was a dark finish, and the third was a cheap Ekco pan. The dull shiny was put in top oven all by itself. The other two were put in the lower oven with the dull one on top and the cheap one on the bottom. The shiny pan had nice raised domes. The dark one on the bottom had nice domes, but the Ekco on the bottom rack and hardly raised.

After 10 minutes I lowered the temperature and switched the two pans in the bottom from top rack to bottom rack. The cheap Ekco pan then raised the dome on the cupcakes.

Made my second batch. This time the cheap Ekco pan went in the top oven all by itself and the dull and dark pan went into the bottom oven with the dull pan on the bottom. All cupcakes raised with domes.

So my conclusion is that to get it nice dome it depends on your pan and your oven. Alton Brown in his episode of Yellow Cake showed that if you use a dark pan to bake a cake you will get a cake that is raised on the outside and sunken in the middle. I figured that if it happened with a cake it can happen with a cupcake. So I went and bought the bright dull aluminum cupcake pan from Williams Sonoma to test this theory.

Your ovens will vary, but for my oven I need the shiny dull pan to get a nice dome IF I put more than one pan at a time in the oven. If I put in one pan in the oven and do the 400 degree/350 degree thing I get a dome.

BUT -

I also got dry cupcakes. I think that at 400 degrees 20 minutes is too long and you should start checking them at say 16 or 18 minutes. So I need to go back to the drawing board and make two more batches. One will be made at 350 degrees in shiny dull pan for 20 minutes (start checking after 18 minutes) to see if it domes without the higher heat, and the other batch will be made in the 400/350 degree oven for a lesser amount of time. This way I will know for sure if it is the pan that can control the dome or if it is the combined baking time.

The cupcakes were so dry they were inedible. Good for me I was testing a recipe and not making them for an event. Still it is disheartening to then have to dump all those cupcakes.

And I should also add that there is a blog called Cake Journal. She got a dome based on the way she mixed the batter. It also affected the crumb and dryness too. I think. I am going by memory. I don't have time to link it right now, but you can google "cake journal" and it should come up.

Yeah I have heard to bake them at 400 for 5 minutes and then reduce the heat... I use an old cupcake pan that has been in my family for years and I didn't want to have to stop using it, but I guess I will have to go buy me some other ones and see how they work compared to mine that I have now? Thank you LindaF144 I will for sure be looking for that Journal.. Thank you both so very much!!!

I recently found an article about this.

http://blog.foodnetwork.com/food-network-kitchens/2009/04/10/easter-cupcake-update/