The Perfect Cupcake - Cooks Illustrated

Published January 1, 2003.

It turns out that the best cupcake recipe is also the easiest to make. And the richest chocolate frosting is even easier.

The Problem

Many cupcakes are tasteless, dry, and crumbly, while others are greasy and eggy. Still others are cloyingly sweet or rubbery and leaden.

The Goal

To make a better cupcake, so delicious that the cake itself would be savored as much as the icing, a grown-up cupcake good enough to satisfy the mothers and fathers at a kid's birthday party.

The Solution

Use unsifted all-purpose flour, a combination of whole eggs and yolks, sugar, butter and sour cream (for a slightly tangy richness), all dumped into a mixer in no particular order. Why does this method (as opposed to the more classic creaming method or two-stage method) work? One possible answer is that egg yolks contain emulsifiers that hold the fat and liquid together even when mixed in such a haphazard fashion. A simple whipped ganache, made of just heavy cream and semisweet chocolate, proved the perfect topping.

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