More cupcake drama...no I did not drop them.

I hate making cupcakes with a passion, so I very rarely do it. Yet I am fascinated by this discussion for some odd reason.

All I know about liners is that if you use a paper decorative liner, you lose the look of the design when the cupcake bakes. But if you then try to just put a 2nd fresh paper liner around the cupcake, they always seem to big and messy looking.


One more reason I don't want to make them.

Me too. I just thought, "Hey, a variety of liners!"

You know, that is a great point. You buy these super cute liners just to find out when they are baked you barely notice and/or the design is changed (color different after baking/or shade of the cupcake - especially chocolate). What a scam! 

I never thought to look at the instructions, yet i was always unsure. For years, I did the thing where I used both liners until someone told me that I only need to use one. Her reason was that you never buy cupcakes with two liners. Then I started using foil by itself. Because yes, those white ones are very thin and tend to look burned.

I think the paper liners are to be used when you have cupcake pans.
The foil liners can be placed on a cookie sheet when you don't have cupcake pans.

These are the aluminum baking cups I use.  There are pastel paper liners between the foil liners, presumably to separate them.  These can be placed freestanding on a cookie sheet and retain their shape, if you don't have cupcake pans. 

The Reynolds brand I have now has about 5 paper and then a foil one and says nothing about discarding any. Surely they are not meant to throw 5 away. I'm sure there are many variations in different brands. I never use 2. I make more muffins than cupcakes and they are small batches, so I use paper sometimes and foil the other. I don't need them to be decorative. Never could figure out why they are packaged this way.

I am cheap and don't buy the foil ones. I only buy the paper ones. But I would separate and use both one at a time.

That's the whole point of the foil ones.  The design doesn't change while baking when the oils of the cupcake soak into the paper ones.  I'm another that discards the paper in between the foil.  There are many different decorative foil ones now.  My grocery stores has them, but I'm pretty sure I've seen them at both Michael's and Hobby Lobby.

I don't ever buy foil ones.

Just the paper ones.

They're usually cuter.

From Reynolds:


Reynolds Foil Baking Cups are packed with paper separators to prevent the foil cups from fusing together during manufacturing. These paper separators should be removed before filling the foil baking cups with batter.

Reynolds Foil Baking Cups are strong enough to be placed directly on a cookie sheet without the need for a muffin pan. We recommend placing the foil cups on a cookie sheet and filling each cup 2/3 full. To make this as easy as possible, pour cake batter from a measuring cup with a spout or drop batter from a 1/4 cup measure or ice cream scoop.

I've used both the paper and foil but separately. I had no idea what they're for