I’ll be honest, I’d planned something else for C. But in the end, I ran out of time, and the kids were not impressed with my original idea for C. We have recently joined a family “Great Lockdown Bake Off” group. A different theme each week with your bake photos to be submitted on a Thursday. It’s just a bit of fun to get the kids baking. Who are we kidding?!…it’s a welcome distraction for all of us!! So, C ended up being for Cupcakes. Not technically craft, but its a fun activity to do with the kids, so I’m saying it still counts.
So here is the recipe for my cupcakes. It comes from a wedding cake book. I chose to do a rainbow buttercream decoration on mine. I will share my method for that as well. You can of course change the decoration if you’d rather. Do what makes you and the kids happy. That is the objective after all.
Ingredients
This recipe will make about 15-20 cakes.
- 200g unsalted butter
- 200g caster sugar
- 4 medium eggs, beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200g self raising flour
Method
- 1. Preheat your oven to 160ºC, and lay out your cases in a muffin tin.
- 2. Beat the butter and sugar together using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, mixing thoroughly between each addition. If you add the eggs too quickly, the mixture will split. Then add your vanilla essence.
- 3. Fold in the flour until just combined. Don’t over work it.
4. Divide your mixture into the muffin cases.
5. Bake for 10-15 mins, but keep an eye on them. They are done when they spring back when touched, or when a knife comes out clean.
6. Leave them to cool completely before decorating.
Decoration
This buttercream recipe covered about 15 of my cakes. The original recipe reckons it’ll cover far more. Maybe I’m just a bit generous with my portions!!
Ingredients:
- 170g unsalted butter, softened
- 340g icing sugar
- water to soften as required.
- Using an electric mixer, soften the butter.
- Gradually add the icing sugar, so that it doesn’t go everywhere.
- Add the water if it is a bit stiff.
- Turn up the speed on your mixer and beat until the buttercream is pale and fluffy.
I coloured my buttercream to make rainbow cupcakes. It was a bit messy, but it turned out ok.
I divided my mix into seven separate bowls, and coloured them red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. On a large piece of clingfilm, I piped a line out of each of the colours next to each other. Carefully roll the cling film up to create a rainbow mix. Use this to pipe swirls onto your cupcakes.
And there you have it. C is for Cupcakes! Enjoy!
P.S. For those of you that are curious, next week in our Great Lockdown Bake Off is biscuit week!
Beading Brilliant 