To get the cupcakes even on top you can press down on the middle as soon as you take it out of the oven, using a clean kitchen towel. Or you can simple cut the risen middle off when you take them out. This is what I would do for your daughters birthday party.
Take the cupcake papers and spread them out a little so that the sides are more slanted. If you can't do that in a muffin pan, put them on a cookie sheet and use more than one paper for stability. When they're done, flatten the tops and turn them upside down.At this point you can use some pudding or whipped creme with a baggie as a pastry bag and insert a filling into the middles of them.
Assort the flavors of the cakes and fillings if you want. Go to a craft store and buy half dolls with picks as bodies from the waists down and insert them into the upsidown cupcakes which will become the dolls dresses. Use died frosting to decorate the dolls and gowns and each girl can have their own doll cupcake , homemade at very little cost.
Use colored sugar and other decorations on the gowns. Dye frostings into different colors.
There are 2 important points to getting level and even cupcakes - a good, solid baking pan and a "balanced" oven. If you don't have good baking pans,the heat doesn't distribute evenly so the batter cooks unevenly. If your oven doesn't heat evenly, you have the same problem - which is why you might want to rotate the pans in the oven - switch front and back or side to side for instance.
If you have the time and need that many cupcakes, make different batches with different flavors...personally I'd only do this if I needed to make more then 20-24 cupcakes. Check out cakedecoratingclub.com/hellocupcakebook for some great cupcake ideas. Good luck.Facebook.Com/LearnToDecorateCakes.
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