Learning Curves

I finally picked up some mini cupcake/muffin pans. I bought two pans , figuring that 24 mini cupcakes might be equal in volume to 12 regular sized cupcakes. After popping 48 mini cuppies into the oven, I discovered that this ratio is more like 3:1. Three bowls of tinted icing and 72 cupcakes later, I had my final figures. I guess I should be more careful when adapting a recipe that is supposed to yield one tall 9" round layer cake. I ate and distributed most of the pink swirly and orange swirly topped cupcakes prior to deciding to photograph them, so I grabbed a few shots in the fleeting filtered sunlight of my basement living room before heading upstairs to drop off what I'm calling my Topiary Cupcakes:

I couldn't resist picking up a Wilton grass tip the last time I was at Michael's, and I was dying to try it out. As Hubby pointed out, these cupcakes don't actually need excessive amounts of frosting due to the awesomeness of the cake itself, and the grass tip really helps moderate the amount of icing that gets piped on. Here's the plate that went up to the future Mother-In-Law:


The lesson learned is that I need to fill one NORMAL cupcake pan first and THEN utilize the mini pans. Even with 6 dozen little guys, I had many that were overflowing their little papers. Even though mine still appears to be too big for the mini pans, I highly recommend a self-scraping ice cream or cookie scoop for filling cupcake or muffin pans (the link is to the one I purchased). I had VERY little mess (outside of the frosting and batter smeared all over my face) and helped me distribute batter evenly, even though it was a bit too much. I did just find a teaspoon-sized scoop available from King Arthur Flour (which is what my Red & Blue Velvet Cupcakes are made from), so I'll have to order one and try it out for my next encounter with the minis.