Cupcakes

I have been meaning to improve my decorating skills for a long time and with Finn's first birthday coming up, I really want to be able to make his cake. Today it was raining which is always the perfect time to bake so I whipped up some vanilla cupcakes and tried my hand at some piping with buttercream icing, which is great for decorating because it's smooth and reasonably thick so it holds its place. The presentation wasn't bad but it wasn't perfect either but practise makes perfect of course! The great thing about these is that you can decorate them how you like, with different coloured icing, and things such as sprinkles, silver balls, and in my case chocolate buttons. Here's the result! The cupcakes were delicious and very easy to make!

Vanilla cupcakes

Ingredients

225g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Buttercream icing:

115g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
225g icing sugar
Food colouring

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 C and grease muffin tray or line flat tray with paper cases.
2. Place all ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs and vanilla) in large bowl and beat until well combined.
3. Spoon into cases or muffin tray and bake for 18mins or until risen and golden brown. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
4. Meanwhile to make icing, put butter, half of the milk and vanilla in large bowl and beat until smooth and blended. Add a few drops of food colouring. Sift icing sugar over the mixture while still mixing at low speed until icing is smooth and has spreading consistency. If too stiff, add a little extra milk.
5. Put icing in piping bag and pipe a swirl on top of each cupcake and decorate as desired :)