… and what you can do about it.
Why do the cupcake liners sometimes come off the finished cake? I get asked this question a lot, and this has bugged me in the past, because the cupcakes look so ugly.
The main reason: Too much moisture
The paper loosens when its gets wet. There can be different reasons. Often the problem depends on the recipe, but it can occur if poor quality paper liners have been used or if the cupcakes haven’t been in the oven for long enough.
In the picture below you can see two different vanilla cupcakes that were baked in the same paper case. The back cupcake turned out perfectly. The front one, another recipe, was unsuitable and the liner is coming off.
How to prevent this?
Here are some tips for you to avoid the problem:
- Leave some moisture out of your recipe. Specifically, this means: experiment with less water, milk, sour cream, eggs, oil, etc.
- Increase the amount of flour in your recipe.
- Bake your cupcakes a few minutes longer. The resulting crust can also help “hold” the paper in place.
- Bake your cupcakes in a high quality, thick-walled baking pan that conducts heat well.
- Immediately remove the cupcakes from the baking pan after baking so that the condensation from the cooling steam does not additionally moisten the paper.
- If you soak your cupcakes in syrup after baking, use the syrup sparingly.
- Let your cupcakes cool completely before storing them.
- Don’t put your cupcakes in an airtight container, choose a container that allows air to circulate, preferably a cardboard box.
- Only use grease-repellent cupcake papers that do not soak up the fat from the dough, but stays dry on the outside instead. One of my favorite brands is called “House of Marie”.
- Best-kept secret: Metallic foil liners work a lot better than paper liners.
Pro tip
Always store your cupcake liners in their original packaging or in a glass so they can’t relax. Once the paper is stretched out, it is too big and no longer makes a nice round shape, as in the picture on the left.
Once the paper has peeled off, it’s hard to stick it to the cupcake again. If this happens to you, then the most elegant solution is to peel the cupcakes out of the sad paper liner and place them “naked” on a plate before serving!
Have fun and happy baking!
