Yummy vanilla Cupcakes Recipe

I made these cupcakes for my brothers 18th birthday party, and they were my favourite out of the ones I've been making from my little recipe book. Maybe that's because I'm getting better, or because I'm paying more attention to things, like leaving the butter out to soften, adding eggs in one at a time and actually sieving the flour! Okay so I do those things sometimes, but not always and while they do taste nice, the taste better when done properly, who would have thought eh? They were sweet, springy and were inhaled by all the party guests! Here's how to make them with a few modifications from me and it takes about half an hour for prep and cooking. It says it makes 18 but I filled a baking tray with 12 cupcakes, but they were bigger than what they were meant to be I guess.

Ingredients

140 g/5 oz  softened butter

140 g/5 oz caster sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

200 g/7 oz self-raising flour

Topping

(note, this makes a LOT of icing cream so you can half it if you want)

225 g/8 oz softened butter

1 tbsp cream or milk

350 g/12 oz caster sugar

Cake decorations of your choice (I used blue crystals that look purple)

Method

001 - Line the muffin pans with the paper cases and turn on the oven to 190 degrees/375 F/Gas mark 5 to preheat the oven.

002 - Place the butter and the sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then beat in the vanilla extract. Gradually beat in the eggs one by one, then sift in the flour and fold into the mixture. I put half of the flour in, then folded it in, then did the other half. Then spoon the batter into the paper cases. (The batter wasn't runny for me like with other mixtures, but more of a gloopy paste).

003 - Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden and springy to the touch. (Mine took about 15-18 minutes but my ovens a bit weird, I kept checking on them though from 12 minutes onwards). Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely or just take them out of the muffin pan and let them cool on your countertops like I did.

004 - While they're cooling you can then make the topping. Place the butter and milk in a bowl and beat together. Gradually sift in the sugar and beat until smooth. It should be thick and taste sweet. If its too buttery add in more sugar, I did but I'm not sure how much more I added, I just kept adding a bit and tasted it till it was how I wanted. 

005 - You can use a pastry bag with a nozzle to pipe the cream on top of the cupcakes when they're cooled, or just spread it on using a knife/spoon like I did. Then add your decorations of choice. I placed my cupcakes in a tin I was keeping them in till later on and sprinkled the blue crystals carefully over the tops and voila! They were done.

I hoped you liked that and the cupcakes if you decide to make them, they were gorgeous! I also made chocolate versions where I added in one spoon full of cocoa (so then you take away one spoon full of flour) and 25 grams of melted chocolate to the batter, then used ready made chocolate icing for the topping and white chocolate sprinkles to add. I can make chocolate topping but its annoys me as it never gets how I want it, and it's a bit easier when you're preparing for a party!

Mothers Day

Hope everyone had a lovely Mothers Day. I baked chocolate cupcakes for my mum and everyone else (they taste nicer than they look), and made them pink for the occasion! I made a very bad hand made card and got her a very pretty scarf. I don't have much money so I feel bad but her birthdays next month so I can always get something nicer if I have more shifts! (I'm averaging around 5-9 hours each week :( but picked up an extra shift for tomorrow) and I'm almost done with paying for fixing my car so just need to carry on with the not spending any money thing which is hard.

I love my new phone

I bought a Samsung Galaxy S2 the other day, I'm in love! My old phones contract was up on St. Davids day (March the 1st) and I thought it was about time to get one of those fancy internet phones, since it really is about time, I mean, who doesn't have internet on their phone nowadays? I was tempted for the iPhone but didn't want to pay loads of money upfront for it, and loads of people said the Galaxy is better including the phone shop people (one of whom is a friend), and I'm only paying an extra £10 a month for it. My boyfriend has an iPhone and tried to persuade me to get one too but I really didn't want to spend loads considering I have to pay for my car! I've downloaded so many apps already, and I'm on facebook and twitter more, and the camera is way better than my first camera! (and better than my actual camera as in, its not broken). I downloaded the blogger app but it says I need a google email to sign in and I don't log into this with a google email so I am very confused and frustrated with that lol.

Anywho! I made some chocolate fairy cupcakes tonight since I was really craving chocolate, and they were yummy. I should have left them in for longer though, and maybe made a few more smaller ones, as these were huge and overflowing, I had to cut the ends off! But it is fun learning what to do better next time. I took the above photo with the pudding app (how appropriate!) which I am in love with too! Oh and some other good news, I mentioned before that my purse was returned to me!!! And my car might be fixed sometime next week *fingers crossed*, its getting really expensive now, but, it would cost at least double what I will be paying if I went to a garage, so I'm trying to stay positive here!

Adventures in Baking

I've recently started baking, which is a huge thing for me. I am terrified of the kitchen! Or well, doing things without supervision, and yes I am 21 years old and decided this needed to change! When I moved out for uni (just one year) I only knew like two dishes, but I usually microwaved things, or cooked with my flatmate who would help me, shocking I know. I've managed to learn a few dishes off by heart now that I can do by myself, but not that many. I've baked things by myself before, but not from scratch until this month! My boyfriends drama society was having a bake sale and I wanted to bake things for it. 

I practiced making a few things first, which I had crappy cupcake holders and no proper cupcake/muffin tray, they looked ugly but were yummy. I then bought some pretty cupcake holders and double lined then for the above attempt which are melt in the middle chocolate cupcakes. They are heavenly! They were like mini cakes since they were quite large, I only made four. They were best warm, since the next day the chocolate had hardened in the middle so was a bit awkward to make. They're really simple, make your mixture, spoon half of it in, then put a dark chocolate chunk in the middle and cover up with the rest of the mixture and bake, and voila! 

For the bake sale I went to Hobby Craft (and spent a lot of money on things), and bought a cupcake/muffin baking tray which is awesome! I made chocolate chip cupcakes, with butter icing and added various sprinkles on top. I really like the fun cupcake holders, they went really quickly for the bit I was there. The drama society were raising money for charity and the play they were putting on. I made these, the above and a bunch of other things from a cupcake book I got from the works for like £2, they are really simple and easy to do.

I also bought a cake pop making kit from Hobby Craft too. I've wanted to make them for ages! If you haven't heard of them before, they are an American thing where you bake a cake and mush it all up to make cake pops and stick them on a stick and add melted chocolate. I followed A Beautiful Mess's guide to making cake pops. Since I was short on time I stuck them in the freezer, but next time I won't do that as I found them too hard sometimes, and they would crack and fall into the melted chocolate boo. In Hobby Craft they had the melted chocolate Elsie suggests, but were quite expensive so I may look online next time. I probably won't buy the kit again unless I'm giving them to someone again. I didn't try them cold, but people liked them so that makes me happy!

Anyway that's a little bit of what I've been up to. It's amazing how easy it is for me when I tell myself I can do something, since normally I'd always ask for help before I even needed it which I need to stop doing in life. I just want to bake all the time now!