Butter Cupcakes

This was totally a fluke, I must admit. I didn't have many ingredients left over from my other batch of cupcakes on Sunday but I did have butter, so naturally I made butter cupcakes. These are one of my all time favourite cupcakes to make and eat of course. I iced these cupcakes with my Grandmothers old Butter Icing recipe! :)

recipe
makes 11

For cupcakes

2 eggs
150g butter
1 cup castor sugar
1 & 1/2 plain flour
1 cup of buttermilk

For icing

100g butter
icing sugar
2 tablespoons of hot water
1 tablespoon of vanilla essence
piping bag and food colouring (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees and line muffin tray with cupcake cases.

In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar together until it is of a cream consistency. Add the flour into the bowl and mix until all ingredients are combined. Beat in the eggs and then mix in the buttermilk.

Spoon mixture into the cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 minutes, checking of course along the way. Insert skewer and if it comes out clean, take it out immediately. Leave to cool for 20-30 minutes before decorating.

In a bowl, mix together the icing sugar (I used around 2-3 cups) and butter until it is creamy. Add the hot water and then the vanilla essence. I found that after I added the vanilla essence it was far too runny, so I then added around half a cup of icing sugar. Once everything is mixed, put into a piping bag and decorate away.

If you want to add food colouring, always remember to put it in before you get your icing to the desired consistency as it will make the icing runny :)

Valentines Day Chocolate Cupcakes

I absolutely love this recipe! I've decorated them with red and white icing (it was anniversary gift cupcakes) but under it is all chocolate :) Rich, dark lovely chocolate! This cupcake is so moist and lovely and out of the 28 cupcakes I made there is around 10 left! And I only made them yesterday! Anyway onto the recipe!


recipe
Makes 30

For cupcakes

3 heaped tablespoons of instant coffee
cup of hot water
400 g of good quality dark cooking chocolate
250 g of butter
5 eggs (if they are large eggs only use 4)
1/3 cup of cooking oil
1/2 cup of buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 cups of plain flour
2 & 1/2 cups of caster sugar
1 & 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1/3 cup of cocoa

For icing

4 cups of icing sugar
water
food colouring
piping bag


Method

Preheat oven to 160 degrees, line three 12 hole muffin trays with cupcake cases.

Disolve the coffee with the hot water and put into a bowl with the butter and chopped up chocolate. Place this bowl over a large saucepan of simmering water and stir until all the ingredients are melted and mixed. When this is ready, take the bowl out and cool to room temperature.

In another bowl, whisk the eggs, oil and buttermilk until all combined. In another bowl, sift flour, salt, baking powder, caster sugar, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa and mix. Add the egg mixture to this bowl and mix until everything is combined.

Spoon mixture into the cupcake cases, filling it until its around 1/3 full. Bake for around 20-25 minutes. Every oven is different so be sure to check with an instrument of some sort (skewer, fork etc) to see if they are cooked all the way through. I checked mine after 10 minutes then at 15 minutes and took them out soon after, its important to not overcook and lose the moisture. Once baked, take out and leave to cool down for around 25 minutes before decorating.

Decoration

Prepare icing sugar in a bowl and mix in a little bit of water at a time. The icing must be quite thick, so be sure to not over-add water to make it runny. Spoon on icing until the top of the cupcake is covered (another method would be to dip the top of the cupcake into the icing) and leave to set.

Add some food colouring to the remaining icing and pipe the top of the cupcake in any pattern you want! (As it was my parents anniversary I piped in red a love heart on one and put their initial on seperate cupcakes which they gave to eachother)

And thats it! :)

Little Sparrow Bakery

I'm still insanely new to blogger but I've created this baking blog in companion to my main one, Little Sparrow. I intend to post what I bake with the recipes so I can keep track of everything I make and want to make! :)

xo