Fairy and butterfly cakes.
Essentially a cupcake with icing and butterfly cakes have jam and cream add and the centre reapplied to resemable butterfly wings, they take me back to my childhood and making them with my mum, great memories.
Makes: 12 cupcakes
Cupcake INGREDIENTS
85 grams self-raising flour
40g cornflour or potato starch
125 grams sugar
125 grams soft unsalted butter, room temp preferably 1 hour before using
2 large eggs, room temp
½ teaspoon vanilla paste
2 tablespoons milk
Toppings
120gm Icing sugar + extra 1tsp for Chantilly cream and dusting
2 tablespoons warm water
150ml cream
Vanilla paste
Raspberry or strawberry jam
Freckles or sprinkles
Glace cherries (optional)
METHOD for cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 160ºC and line a muffin tin with the 12 muffin cases.
Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs one at a time with a little of the flour.
Then add the vanilla extract and fold in the rest of the flour, adding the milk to get the dropping consistency.
This mixture is quite a small quantity but it will make 12 cupcakes, so just spoon and scrape the stuff in, to fill each case equally. I usually use a dessertspoon and teaspoon to do this step.
Put in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cup cakes are cooked and lightly golden on top. Remove the cupcakes out of the muffin tin and let cool, right way up, on a wire rack. Decorate when cooled.
Method for the Icing – fairy cakes
Making icing in a saucepan add the 120gm icing sugar and 2 tablespoons of warm water and heat. Don’t over heat this will take a few minutes only. You can add colouring if you wish but do this quickly stir in the colour and pour over 6 of the cupcakes. Add a freckle on top or sprinkle the sprinkles over.
Method for the Chantilly Cream – butterfly cakes
Place the cream in a bowl and beat until it has soft peaks, add the 1 tsp of icing sugar and vanilla paste and mix in with a spatula or hand whisk.
Take a cupcake and a knife (get an adult to assist with this step) with the knife on a diagonal cut a domed circle out of the centre of the cupcakes, set this piece of cake aside (we are going to use in a moment). Place a teaspoon of jam in the centre of the cupcake and then add a dollop of cream on top of the jam. Cut the piece of cake you just cut out of the cupcake on half. Place on an angle with the cooked sides face inwards. Repeat this with the other 5 cupcakes dust with icing sugar.
Note: my mum use to add a ¼ of a glace cherry as the head to the butterfly you can do this if you wish.
