Funfetti Cupcake Review
March 27, 2020
What was your favorite boxed cake when you were a kid? Come on, I know you had one! My personal favorite (And I feel like most of the world is with me on this one) was the Pillsbury Dough boy Funfetti cake mix and Icing. You can’t forget the icing………..
A lot of people turn their noses up to the boxed stuff, but I have found over the years, though I love baking from scratch, there’s nothing wrong with having a couple of pre-mixed boxed items in your pantry. Usually when I am baking, I commit to theme of time for a year or a particular job. In Norfolk, I baked for my Sailors. This year I have been baking for my fellow congressional fellows’ Birthdays (If they are willing to tell me their birthday……. If not I go with plan B and ask their spouses!). Sometimes when you get home from work at 9pm, and you have a baking commitment the next day, the boxed stuff is the way to go!
With all that said, for one of the birthday celebrations a couple of weeks ago, I got inspired to try to make my favorite Boxed Funfetti Cupcakes from scratch. The internet is an amazing place for knowledge and recipes. I usually go to three or four different sources for ideas and then use different components of all the recipes, but this recipe I found was a winner! CHELSWEETS put an awesome recipe together, and I am going to show you all how my attempt at mastering it went.
First, here is the link to her recipe and directions. Check it out!
https://chelsweets.com/2019/06/18/funfetti-cupcakes/
I ended up using two different kinds of sprinkles. For the inside of the cake I used the Jimmy Sprinkles that she calls for in the recipe. If you buy the sprinkles in bulk, it is hard to find them without brown sprinkles, which she says will cause the cake to discolor. I ended up going with some cake mate sprinkles at my local grocery store (for you military types, the commissary), that had no brown sprinkles. In order to have enough for the cake batter, you need at least 2 ½ small jars of the sprinkles. For the decoration sprinkles, I used bright confetti sprinkles. I did not use these in the cake recipe, because the colors of the sprinkles would run similarly to the nonpareil sprinkles.
The most interesting part of this recipe was the call for sour cream to keep the colors of the sprinkles from bleeding in the cake batter. It worked for that, but I found it also made the cake super moist and kept it from drying out. It did such a good job; I might start substituting it into other cupcake recipes.
Tips for Making this the perfect cupcake!
I usually go with cupcakes over a tiered cake, because they are easy to eat anywhere. If you go with a full cake, you must bring plates, napkins, and plastic wear……… The challenge with cupcakes is they can be very messy during the baking process. I’m going to go over a couple of tips that I have learned through trial and error.
Dry Ingredients
I was a non-believer when it came to sifting dry ingredients for baking. I think mainly because those metal sifters that you use the handle press to sift just take FOREVER………. I have now finally come to accept that it really does make a smoother batter when you sift all of the dry ingredients before you mix them. It ensures everything gets the right proportion of ingredients, especially when it comes to cupcakes. All you really need is a thin metal strainer, and it does just as good as a job.
The cleanest way to master cupcakes!
The CHELSWEETS recipe says the sour cream also keeps the cake from sticking to the cupcake wrapper. I avoid this issue all together by using paper baking cups (I don’t know why everyone isn’t using these already). My favorite place to get them is at TJ-MAX or HOME GOODS. You can usually get a pack of 50 for 3 or 4 dollars (You may have to hunt for them sometimes). Amazon and Michaels also sell them, but for a higher cost. This method eliminates the need for a cupcake pan (so you don’t need to clean it!) and you can just put the paper cups directly on a cookie sheet.
The next question..... How do you neatly put the batter into the paper cups?
I love exploring new kitchen implements and tools (My friend Mel hates my love of Kitchen tools). I could probably review any crazy far fetched tool that is out there at this point. For this recipe I tried out the Tovolo Cupcake scoop. If you don’t already have a cookie scoop, then this could be good for you. I thought it was good, and I will use it again, but you could also get away with a large cookie scoop and do two or three scoops, depending on your paper cup size.
The Dreaded Icing Disaster......
Everybody loves icing (If you don’t your lying to yourself, or we can’t be friends). The challenge is how do you make the icing look nice without making a mess? My weakness has always been the decorating side, so I am always looking for easy tricks to help it look somewhat professional. For a long time I was using your typical plastic icing bag with the metal tips. Usually at some point during the process, the tip would rip the bag and icing would spurt out everywhere, and then I would have to figure out how to get a new bag going, while trying to save as much icing as I could. I HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION! I found the Trudeau 4-piece decorating set. It is a reusable silicone icing bag that has a quick release tip mechanism. I got mine at Sur la Table for 20 dollars. This bag took a little more muscle to get the icing to come out, but it also gave me more control to make nice swirls on the top. The only negative is creating a way for the silicone to dry after you wash it. The recipe gave multiple options on icing methods. I ended up going with the two-layer method. I used a No 12 tip for the first layer, dipped the cupcake into the sprinkles, and then used a No 21 tip for the top swirled layer. Beware!!!!!! This is not puppy proof! My dog Bella (who is 11 years old) managed to steal some leftover chocolate icing off of the counter and tear the silicone to threads………………… Apparently she is immune to the dogs allergic to chocolate theory.
Overall I was very happy with the recipe and I encourage everyone to give it a try! Please let us know if you have any questions!