Let them eat cake

I love baking. I’ve been baking ever since I was little and one of the first things I learnt to bake was Butterfly Buns. Somewhere amongst the family photos there’s a photo of a 5 or 6 year old me standing on a chair in the kitchen decorating my latest baking creation. Over the years I’ve had a go at baking various things but cupcakes have always been a particular specialty of mine, so much so that I know the recipe off by heart (admittedly there are only four ingredients and it’s pretty straight forward, but I like that I don’t need a recipe). Another great thing about cupcakes is once you’ve got the basic recipe it’s easy to add to it and create whatever flavour you like.

Basic cupcake recipe:

For the cupcakes:

• 200g golden caster sugar
• 200g margarine
• 200g self raising flour
• 4 eggs

For the buttercream:

• 350g icing sugar
• 150g margarine

To make the cupcakes:

1. Heat the oven to 180°C. Lay out the cupcakes cases in either a 12 hole muffin tin 
2. Cream together the sugar and the margarine. 
3. Mix in one egg at a time, adding a little flour with each.
4. Fold in the remaining flour and mixing until well combined.
5. Spoon the mixture evenly into the cupcake cases.
6. Bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes until they feel spongy and are golden in colour. 
7. Once out of the oven, place on a wire cooling rack to cool down before decorating. 

To make the buttercream:

1. Divide the margarine and icing sugar into four separate bowls and mix until light in colour and fluffy.
2. Using a piping bag swirl the icing on to the cupcakes.

There you have it, the base recipe for cupcakes and buttercream icing just waiting to be made and added to. I rarely make cupcakes without adding in some extra flavours and here are some of my most recent bakes:  

Chocolate

For the cupcakes: substitute 10g of self raising flour for cocoa powder 

For the icing: add in 100g of melted chocolate and top with decorations. 

Lemon Meringue

For the cupcakes: add in the juice and rind of one lemon to the mix. Half fill the cases, add a blob of lemon curd to each case and then top up with the remaining mixture, covering the lemon curd. 

For the icing: Add the rind of one lemon and lemon juice to suit your taste. You may have to add more icing sugar to prevent runny icing. Top with meringue pieces, I made mine using Delia’s recipe.

Jubilee 

I got really into the Jubilee spirit this year and with a glass of Pimm’s in hand I whipped up these cakes. The vanilla flavour of the cake/icing combined with the fruit was light and fresh, the cupcakes do need to be kept in the fridge but I was really pleased with this flavour.

For the cupcakes and the icing: I added vanilla essence to both, and decorate with blueberries and sliced strawberries. 


Enjoy these cupcakes with a glass of Pimm's with all the trimmings.