Comic 'Cakes

I'm here to say: there isn't anything wrong with cupcakes. A handful of cakey love fits the bill when you can't trust your willpower to stop with just one slice of regular cake.

For what has now become an annual event, I made cupcakes for my graduating seniors and other students in their respective classes. I was disappointed with the cake texture from last year's cakes, so I went searching.

I have heard of Amy Sedaris's cupcake recipe before and thought I'd give it a try since it kept coming up on all my searches. I tell you what, these were YUMMY! Very thick batter, though.

Since I do not make cupcakes very often, I do not have cupcake paraphernalia, such as cupcake carriers. I use my good old plastic cakebox, and the frosting makes them messy. To alleviate this problem, I had seen a blurb in a Martha Stewart magazine about using parchment paper instead of cupcake liners. I tried it out and it worked great. (Strange side note: I actually WATCHED the Martha Stewart Show this week and she had a cupcake guest show her the technique, and Martha actually looked surprised. Doesn't she read her magazine?)

If you wish to recreate, you take a 5 inch square piece of parchment and shape it to fit the muffin tin cup. I had a glass the perfect size of the tin cup, so I actually squished the paper around the glass first, then popped it in the tin. You will not be able to get the folds completely flattened, but that is ok. You should probably use an ice cream scoop to get the batter in, as the paper extends up quite a ways (you can make bigger 'cakes this way, too, if you wish), and the batter dripped on my parchment. Yep, that batter burned, while the cakes cooked beautifully, but that batter also knocks right off with no evidence since nothing sticks to parchment.

The parchment papers made the cakes have irregular sides (sort of interesting, though) but they ate just fine. I used my Best Chocolate Frosting Evah and piped it right to the edge of the cupcakes, so you have to get into some of the parchment folds to do that.

I'd do it all again.


The recipe is taken from Amy Sedaris's site verbatim. I got about 16 cakes out of this recipe, but I filled them pretty full.

Amy Sedaris' Cupcakes

1 ½ sticks of unsalted butter
1 ¾ cups of sugar

Beat well, then add:

2 large eggs
2 Teaspoons of pure vanilla
½ teaspoon of salt
2 ½ teaspoons of baking powder
2 ½ cups of flour
1 ¼ cups of milk

Beat well, fill cups, and bake at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes. You should get 24. I get 18, 'cause I'm doing something wrong.