SIMPLE ICED CUPCAKES

Soo I'm a totally proud little sister this week, as yesterday my big sister Olivia graduated from university with an honours degree in Arabic! 

As a lovely little (well little in age, not in height!) sister, I decided to bake her something of her choice.  One of her favourite things in the world is glacé icing, and she asked me to bake her some simple vanilla cupcakes, covered in icing.

These simple cakes are just vanilla sponge mix covered with glacé icing, and literally couldn't be easier or quicker, making them perfect for a birthday party or an unexpected coffee guest!  I think with all the fancy cakes available now, it's easy to forget just how good a simple sponge cake is. 

Having been baking sponge cakes my whole life, I don't use a recipe anymore, for each egg I simply use 2oz (sorry, I work in oz! Thats roughly 56.7g) of everything else.

First of all, get your ingredients:

3 eggs

6oz (170g) flour (sifted)

6oz (170g) caster sugar

6oz (170g) butter or margerine 

Splash of milk

Icing sugar

Water

This makes roughly 18 fairy cakes. (If you want more cake, increase the quantities!)

Next:

Line a fairy cake tray with fairy cake cases (medium size ones).

To make the cake mix, (I use Mary Berry's all in one method) add the flour, sugar, butter, milk and eggs into a bowl and mix until smooth.

Spoon into the lined cake tin, filling to roughly 3/4 up the side of the case.

Put into the oven at 190C/fan 170C/gas 5, for roughly 20 minutes or until pale gold and springy to the touch.

 Put onto a wire rack to cool. 

To make the icing, simply mix the icing sugar with a little water until you have the desired amount and consistency.

Dollop onto the cakes and allow to run. 

 It's also compulsory to eat the leftover icing with a spoon, which is definitely my favourite bit!

Happy baking, 

COFFEE TIME CUPCAKES.

Coffee cake may actually be my favourite cake in the world, and I don't even regret saying that (sorry chocolate cake!)  They almost feel healthy to eat. These easy fairy cakes taste incredible and are perfect for morning coffee! (..or afternoon coffee.. or evening coffee.. or just all the time..)

They are super moist, and full of flavour without being overpowering (for people who say they can't eat coffee cake because they don't like coffee, these have more of a warming hint of latte rather than full blown espresso!) and they only take about 30 minutes from start to finish.

They use normal cupcake ingredients, with an added tablespoon of coffee:

Cupcakes

4oz (100g) butter
4oz (100g) caster sugar
4oz (100g) self raising flour
2 medium eggs 

 1 tablespoon cold, strong black coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract

Coffee Buttercream

5oz (125g) unsalted butter
10oz (250g) icing sugar
1-2 tablespoons cold, strong black coffee (depending on how strong you like it)

Next, mix up all your ingredients:

In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, flour and eggs, until all combined.

Add the coffee and stir well.

Place the mixture into a cupcake tray lined with paper cases, fill them about 3/4 to the top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until slightly brown and springy to the touch.

While the cakes are cooling on a wire rack, make the coffee buttercream, mix the butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy, then add 1-2 tablespoons of coffee, depending on how strong you like it, or what texture you want the cream.

Once the cakes are cool, slice a circle out of them and slice it in half, put a teaspoon of cream into the middle then put the halved tops in like fairy wings.

If you fancy more of a mocha cupcake, add in a small tablespoon of cocoa powder dissolved in water into the cake mix! Here's the printout.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

Happy baking,