Cupcake recipe experiment....

So, this all came about from a recipe I found online that was said to be a good recipe to use for wedding cupcakes as they would be moist and fluffy but they would stay reasonably flat on top making them easier to add frosting. With my own wedding fast approaching, I thought I'd give them a go!

So this is the recipe I used -

1 packet of white cake mix (I used a 500g packet of Wrights maderia cake mix)

1 cup plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups water
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
4 large egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Place cupcake liners in cupcake pans.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix, flour, sugar and salt. Add remaining ingredients and beat with hand mixer for 2 minutes, or until well blended.

3. Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full. Bake about 18 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean

I know 'cups' aren't a measurement normally used in the UK, but this is a recipe I picked up from an american site so had to pull the measuring cup out of the back of the cupboard, it was either that or I'd have to google all the ingredients conversion values into grams!

The resulting mixture was quite runny - much more so than my normal cupcake mixture! I ended up having to pour the mixture into a measuring jug to get it into the prepared muffin cases, only after trying (and failing!) to spoon the mixture in. If I'm completely honest I was more than a little sceptical that this mixture was going to work, but was pleasantly surprised when the cakes came out of the oven....

I left them in the oven a little longer than the instructions stated as they didn't colour as much as I would have expected. After 24 minutes in the oven, a cake tester came out clean, the cakes were springy to the touch and had risen evenly.

To decorate, I whipped up a batch of vanilla frosting and split this into 3 bowls before adding colouring (pastel shades are always nice in the summer!)....

Frosting piped on and decorations added, these are the finished cupcakes....

Most importantly though, what do they taste like? The answer - pretty good! I was surprised as I don't normally go for ready mixes, preferring to make my mixtures from scratch. They are a little sweeter than my usual cupcake mix, but they had a better texture. I can see why these have been described as a good choice for wedding cupcakes as they would be a definite crowd pleaser and the results when baking were consistant across the batch of 24.

The site I got the recipe from said that this recipe could also be used for sandwich cakes - this is something I'm obviously going to try out in the coming weeks after the results I've had today so I will keep you posted......

Lots of love and cupcakes

Laura xx