Did you know you can freeze cake batter? I didn't until quite recently. For ages, when I would make a cake that I didn't need all the batter for, I would bake the batter and freeze the cooked batter, and then forget about it and then throw away the sad, freezer burned cake away several months later. It was a sad waste of good cake. But then I tried freezing the batter and found that it didn't impact to the quality of the baked cake. I was pretty sure that I had actually invented this idea, until I took a look around and realized it's everywhere on the internet. Perhaps I'm not the unique genius I briefly imagined...

I like to use glass jars, making sure to leave about an inch of space at the top so the freezing batter has room to expand. Leave the lids off too, until the batter is frozen, them pop them on. Alternately, freeze in ziplock bags, laying flat with the air squeezed out. Let frozen batter thaw overnight and bake as normal.

I almost always only need about 1/2 of the batter a recipe will make, so it's great to be able to use it up. It's also great for all that surprise company that lifestyle magazines talk about, with tips like "Keep a casserole and a roll of cookie dough in the freezer for unexpected guests." If this sounds like your life, you'll always be close to fresh cupcakes if you have some frozen cake batter. This works well with most types of batter, except those that are leavened with beaten egg whites, like angel food cake. Those will deflate of frozen.