Cupcake recipes using German ingredients

I have a cupcake recipe that I've been using since I was about 10 years old that sadly does not translate particularly well to german products. In Oz they come out light, spongey and fluffy, and practically melted in your mouth. Here, they come out more like a very heavy muffin, almost like a semi-sweet crumbly bread. Which is NOT what I am looking for. I have read all the threads, and info on the differences in flour etc etc, and how to make self-raising flour (which I do) but to no avail.

So. I would be delighted if anyone has a straightforward basic cupcake recipe they would be prepared to share?

To give you an idea of what I am looking for, my current recipe uses:

SR flour
Caster sugar
Butter
Milk
Vanilla essence
Eggs

Nothing fancy - basically I would love a recipe where you can chuck everything into the bowl, mix for a few minutes, then spoon into patty-pans, and 12-15 minutes later, pull tasty golden goodness out of the oven.

Cheers!

Here is my favourite recipe:

200 g frozen raspberries
120 g soft butter
120 g sugar
1 egg
300 g sour cream
250 g flour
2,5 Tsp baking powder
½ Tsp Kaiser's Natron

1. Preheat oven to Gas mark 190°C.

2. Place the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy

3. Add one egg

4. Add sour cream and mix well

5. Combine flour, Kaiser's Natron and baking powder and then add carefully without beating too much

6. Prepare a 12 cup muffin tray with paper liners and spoon in the mixture

7. Add the raspberries ( I always pick out the nicest ones and use the left-overs for milk shakes).

8. Bake for about 25 minutes at about 180-200 °C

9. Dust with icing sugar

Your problem is that you can't get self raising flour here. I imagine if you use some baking powder (Backpulver - available at any grocery store) your recipe will work just fine.

If you want to get really fancy you can use baking soda (natron - only available at the apotheke) as well.

Yep, for each cup of flour add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt.

Oh, I see the OP has said she has made self rising flour and it still didn't work. Hmm.

You can get baking soda at many supermarkets. Kaiser Natron or Dr. Oetker Hausnatron. You must be thinking of cream of tartar - Weinsteinpulver. You wouldn't need that for cupcakes.

Thanks for the recipe, marie-claire.

And yes, I have been making SR flour with backpulver and salt, but I still can't get the texture of the cakes right, to my immense frustration, because when they work, they are great!

So, I have resigned myself to stealing someone else's recipe.

Cheers for the responses!

Perhaps use more baking powder next time?

Shoot! You're right I had them mixed up. It's harder to find than baking powder but not as hard as cream of tartar.

I would try searching for the threads on

Butter = more fat and less salt then you are used to.
Flour = the normal "make your own SR flour" recipe needs a bit of tweaking it seems.

I cheat an use the stuff that comes in a box works fine every time

Well, I decided to give it one last go, and threw in backpulver with gay abandon (as opposed to the carefully measured approach I've been using, following recipes for SR flour and so forth), and lo and behold, out came my cupcakes, just as I remember them - light and fluffy and delicious! [Much to the delight of my housemates.]

Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a suggestion/comment.

I'm having exactly the same problem making a simple fairy cake/victoria sponge mixture...they just fall apart. I've used baking powder too as well as a pinch of salt. Might give Natron a whirl - can't hurt, I suppose. I've even been using margarine which is designed for baking. I really can't see where I'm going wrong:

4oz margarine
4oz caster sugar
4oz flour
half a packet of Backpulver
2 eggs
pinch of salt.

This worked a dream back home (alas, with SR flour...) but here it's a completely different story...

You can purchase self-raising flour in any Asian shop. I believe I pay about €1,50 for 1 1/2 kilos. The green dragon brand is manufactured by Westmill foods of Enfield, Middlesex, UK.

Thank you, poppet! I'll go have a look later.

Natron is sold at any grocery store, I buy it at Edeka.

Yeah, we already cleared that up at the beginning of the thread.