How to turn cupcakes into mini cupcakes

The only baked good cuter than a cupcake is a mini cupcake, but there aren’t as many recipes out there for these downsized goodies as there are for their full-sized counterparts. Fortunately, it is not difficult to turn a batch of full sized cupcakes into miniature ones as long as you have a mini muffin pan to work with.

Most cupcake recipes can be made into mini cupcakes. Mini cupcake pans hold roughly 1/3 of the amount of regular cupcake pans, so if you have a recipe that yields 12 full sized cupcakes, you’ll get 36 minis from the same amount of batter. It is much easier to start with the full recipe and make a big batch of minis than to cut down the recipe, as there are some recipes that don’t take well to downsizing.

Once you have your batter, fill up the mini muffin pan as you would a regular muffin pan (filling each cup somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 full) and pop the tray in the oven. While most cupcakes take about 15-20 minutes to bake, most mini cupcakes take from 9-14 minutes or so to reach donenss. Check your minis at 9 or 10 minutes with a toothpick and bake longer as needed. The only thing you really need to look out for is the fact that it is easy to overbake these miniature cakes, so keep a close eye on them while they’re baking and check them at very short intervals when they’re close to being done.

All this is also true of mini muffins. One additional thing you’ll want to keep in mind where muffins are concerned is that they tend to have mix-ins, and while big blackberries make a great addition to a full sized muffin, they can overwhelm a mini. Scale down your mix-ins by opting for smaller pieces of chocolate, nuts or fruit to keep them proportional to the mini muffins.

Here are a few mini recipes – and these already come with baking times – to get you started:

• Lemon Poppyseed Mini Muffins
• Pumpkin Mini Muffins with Chocolate Chips
• Mini Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
• Mini Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
• Min Red Velvet Cupcakes