Vanilla Cupcakes

I made these cakes after my mother put in a request for me to make something for her to take into work. They are a classic vanilla sponge with a vanilla buttercream to top them, but I thought that was a little dull, so I decided to try to make something out of the spare buttercream to decorate them further, and out came these rose type flower things!

Makes 12 fairy cakes | prep time | 10 to 30 minute cooking time

Ingredients

For the cakes

110g butter or margarine, softened at room temperature

110g caster sugar

2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

110g self-raising flour

1-2 tbsp milk

For the icing/decoration

210g butter, softened

420g icing sugar

2 tbsp milk

11/2 tsp vanilla extract

a few drops red/pink food colouring

A few small mint leaves (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale. Beat in the eggs a little at a time and stir in the vanilla extract.

3. Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon, adding a little milk until the mixture is of a dropping consistency. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.

4. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

5. For the buttercream icing, beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth.

6. Then add the remaining icing sugar with one tablespoon of the milk, adding more milk if necessary, until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

7. Spoon 2/3 of the icing into a piping bag and snip the end about an inch across and pipe the icing using a spiralling motion onto the cup cakes, starting from the outside going to the cenre in a large swirl.

8. Colour the remaining icing using a few drops of red or pink food colouring to create your desired 'rose' colour. Place this icing in a new piping bag fitted with a flat nozzle.

9. You can use any kind of surface to pipe your flowers, I used what I had available and it happened to be the top of a CLEAN mustard jar! It helps to be able to rotate your flower in one hand while piping with the other hand which is why a small jar works quite well.

10. Once you've found the surface you're going to be piping onto, pipe a small blob to start you off. Then at an angle, pipe petals onto the blob, overlapping as you go until you've got your desired flower size. (I found this quite tricky to do and found the more petals I piped, the better it eventually looked).

11. When you're happy with your flower, carefully remove it from the surface and place it on top of a cake - a small pair of scissors works well for this as you can snip the base of the flower to transfer it delicately.

12. Make 11 more flowers and then place a small mint leaf next to the flowers and your cakes are complete!

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