Cupcake liners can create a sticky situation
Q. Whenever I use paper cupcake liners they stick — not just a few crumbs, either! Not sure what I'm doing: if it's the liner, the recipe, the oven temperature, the cooling, etc. Any tips to try?
A. Been there — and hate being there! The problem is usually the recipe, but the best way to avoid sticking is to spritz the liners with a bit of baking spray. It's kind of a belt-and-suspenders solution, but it should work.
When you pull the cupcakes out of the oven, take a look at them: If the cake has started to come away from the sides of the liner, you've got a recipe that won't give you problems. Make a note of it and look for similar recipes to use for your cupcakes.
Q. Several weeks ago, you suggested that my oven temperature might not be accurate. My handy husband said he'd checked it when we bought the house eight years ago. I had no idea. He said the temperature cycled up and down but on average was accurate. Is that how an oven is supposed to work, or are they supposed to have a constant temperature for the entire cooking time?
A. Every oven, even the fanciest ones, cycles up and down. The differences are often how high or low they cycle or how often they cycle to be able to keep the temperature close to what you set. And if you open the oven door to check something, your oven will have to cycle to make up for the lost heat.
Even if your oven was perfect eight years ago, I'd put a thermometer in and see how it's doing now. Set the temperature to 350 and check when the oven's indicator says it has hit that temperature, then check every 15 minutes for about one hour.
It's always good to spot-check.
Q. I am a fan of weighing ingredients in baking. I think it's easier to ensure I get consistent results each time I bake. Do you have any standard guidelines for weight that you follow? I just recently learned that King Arthur Flour converts one cup of flour as 4.5 ounces and America's Test Kitchen follows it as five ounces. That's a significant difference! I want to make sure I'm baking as the author/chef intended, so I'd love to know what your method is for ensuring accuracy and consistency.
A. When I got the OK to include weights in my cookbooks, I chose to give cup and gram measures; most scales (probably all digital scales) convert easily from ounces to grams, and I wanted to give as much information to as many people as possible in the limited space I had on each page.
To decide on “my” weight for a cup of flour, I scooped out 10 cups of flour, measured each one and averaged what I got. What I got was 136 grams/cup of all-purpose flour. That's 4.8 ounces, so somewhere between King Arthur and America's Test Kitchen.
I'd suggest you do the same exercise and then decide what “your” cup of flour is. It might be a little off, but it will always be consistent for you, and you'll learn to work with it.
Q. The last few things I've baked seem to have a thicker and crunchier-than-normal crust.
A. Sometimes dark baking pans will give you a thicker crust, but I'm thinking that perhaps your oven is off. I know I sound like a broken record, but pop an oven thermometer in and keep it there so that you can check the temperature.
Also, if you're baking loaf cakes that stay in the oven for a while, you might try putting the loaf pan on an insulated baking sheet or on two regular sheets stacked one on top of the other.