Yellow Cupcake Adventure

Once I decided having a cupcake business was something that could really happen and actually work, I was on a mission to come up with the best basic flavors as a base for my cupcakes.  I decided to start with yellow cupcakes.  I mean how hard could it be?  Simple ingredients mixed together to make batter, fill the cupcake pan and liners with the batter, bake and voila!  Well to my discovery that was not the case at all.

I previously had purchased some cupcake books just for ideas.   I looked up a yellow cupcake recipe,  gathered the ingredients and kitchen tools to make the batter.  I followed the recipe, filled the paper liners and baked them.  I was so excited, how hard could it be?  If the recipe is in a book they must be good!  The timer beeped, I took them out and let them cool.  As soon as they were cool enough to eat I peeled the liner off and took a bite…they were not that great.  What went wrong?  Did I measure something wrong?  Did I have a bad ingredient?  Did I under or over bake? Questions were flying around in my head.  I was let down but not discouraged.  Ok this is just one small bump in the road ahead of me.

At this point I decided I needed to research different recipes.  Which was better butter or oil? Baking soda or baking powder?  How much flour should I use?  Milk or water?  How am I going to keep track of all this?  I decided to make a spreadsheet and research different recipes.  I would try different recipes using the ones I found, adjusting measurements or ingredients.  On the spreadsheet I would write a few notes on how they came out.  Some were very dense, some too crumbly, some were flat and spilled over the sides of the pan, and some just did not taste good.

After making about 20 dozen yellow cupcakes and a month later I finally found a yellow cupcake that I liked and would be willing to sell and pay for if I was a customer.  It was a long process but well worth the time, effort and money put into making a good yellow cupcake.

I mean how hard could it be? Right?

Yellow cupcake recipes spreadsheet