Vanilla Cupcakes

Good ol’ fashioned vanilla cupcakes are the ultimate classic. These ones, adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery’s recipe, are really simple and produce wonderfully fluffy cupcakes. The frosting ALWAYS produces way more than normal people need, so think about doubling the cupcake bit for one load of frosting. Or you can freeze the frosting too, so you will be prepared for next time! Decorate with edible sparkles, hundreds and thousands or silver balls.

You will need the following:

For the cake:

• 120g plain flour
• 140g caster sugar
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 40g unsalted butter, at room temperature – v important that it’s not too cold!
• 120ml whole milk (the gold top is the best!)
• 1 egg
• ¼tsp vanilla extract
• 1 quantity vanilla frosting
• hundreds and thousands or other edible sprinkles, to decorate
• a 12-hole cupcake tray, lined with paper cases

For the vanilla frosting:

• 250g icing sugar, sifted
• 100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 20ml whole milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• food colouring of your choice

I also suggest you buy some cute cupcake cases and some form of decoration.  Hundreds and thousands or silver balls are easy to find in your local supermarket, but if you have a chance, go online to source some really exciting cake toppers (such as glitter, stars etc).  A great website I use a lot is http://www.cakecraftshop.co.uk.

You will also need a cupcake tray and an electric mixer.  This recipe makes 12 cupcakes, but you can easily double it, triple it or even quadruple it (if you have a big enough mixer).

So to make the cake, follow these steps:

1) Put some music on.  I always find that Yummy Yummy Yummy is a great song to start baking to.

2) The best bakers wear aprons.  Your mum will have one somewhere.

3) Preheat your oven to 170c or gas mark 3.

4) Mix together the flour, sugar, baking power, salt and butter in an electric mixer until you get a granular, sandy consistency.

5) Once it has reached granular consistency, gradually pour in about half the milk and whisk until incorporated.

6) Whisk the leftover milk together with the egg and vanilla, then slowly add to the mix.  Continue beating for a couple of minutes until smooth.  Do not go mad and beat it to death – it is not a meringue and will not benefit from over zealous whipping.

7) Spoon into your cupcake cases (about 2/3 full) and pop into your preheated oven.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.  Cake is cooked when the sponge springs back when poked.  NB: over excited poking will lead to holes in your cake.  You have been warned.

8) While cake is cooking, make the frosting.  Ensure your butter is soft but not melted (melted would be a disaster) and slowly beat it together with the icing sugar.  Perfectionists are invited to seive the icing sugar first, but it’s not super important.

9) Once combined, turn the mixer down.  Add the vanilla extract to the milk, and mix.  Now add the milk mix to the main icing one table spoon at a time, and turn up to high speed.

10) Keep whisking for AT LEAST five minutes.  This is a very long time and you will think it is done, but it isn’t.  The longer you beat it, the fluffier it gets. Feel free to scoff as much as you want since it makes a LOT of frosting.

11) When cakes are out of the oven, cool them on wire racks.  When cold (wait at least an hour), spread (or pipe) the frosting and decorate accordingly!

Enjoy!