Bake Me Happy! Cupcakes for Beginners
No one is pretending cupcakes are a health food – they’re an unashamed, indulgent treat! But if you make them yourself you know they’re at least wholesome, fresh and additive free...
Not only do cupcakes taste amazing, but they can look amazing too! Choose cupcake cases, toppers and icing colours to compliment the rest of your decor, then display them piled high on cake stands by the coffee or on the sweetie or cake table, or place them individually with each guests name on as an edible favour/place name/table decoration in one. Yum!
All you’ll need is the ingredients, some scales, an oven, a mixing bowl, a wooden spoon, a baking tray and 12 gorgeous fancy cupcake cases!
Ingredients:
- 125 g soft sugar (caster or soft brown),
- 125 g softened butter or Flora (a mixture of both is good)
- 125 g self-raising flour
- 2 large eggs, beaten with 1 tsp vanilla essence
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Put the butter and sugar in your bowl and cream together thoroughly with your spoon, until light and fluffy. Then fold in a little flour, then a little beaten egg, more flour, then more egg, until it’s all gone; and beat well after each addition.
You’re aiming to fold as much air as possible into the mixture so your cakes will be light and spongy. Arrange your cases on a tray, and half-fill each with the mixture. Then pop in the oven for about 15 minutes. Voila!
The flamboyant look of decorated cupcakes makes them perfect for weddings and hen-dos, but sometimes those extravagant toppings can taste a tad sickly! Butter creamed with its weight of icing sugar will make a basic icing – and just a blob is enough to anchor a chocolate shape, a coffee bean, a walnut or a sugar flower… And go wild with inedible toppers, too – wonderfully decorative, completely effortless, supremely celebratory, and totally calorie free!
