1 April 2013

Baking: Fairy Cakes

Hello my lovelies!

I've been busy in the kitchen baking some cakes! Now, I call these fairy cakes, but I know that some people call them butterfly cakes too - what do you call them?

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This recipe is my fail-safe one, I use it for victoria sponges, fairy cakes, everything like that. The recipe is from this Be-Ro book. My mum had one, and her mum had one as well. When I moved out, she bought me one. It's kind of a tradition in our family! 

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It's super easy this recipe as well. First, pre-heat your oven to about 190 degrees, (or about 170 for a fan oven). Using a 'yorkshire pudding' tin, put a cupcake case in each hole, ready to be filled with yummy cake batter.This recipe will make 12 fairy cakes.

All you need is 100g butter, 100g caster sugar, 2 eggs and 100g self-raising flour.

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Make sure the butter is nice and soft, and the eggs are at room temperature. I take everything out of the fridge the night before.

Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy - it should change colour and get lighter - this always takes longer than I think it should. If in doubt, keep going. It is a LOT easier with electric whisks! Try to refrain from sticking your finger in and eating it.

Add one egg, with a little bit of flour, and whisk into the buttery-sugary mixture. Once it's combined, add the other egg, with another little bit of flour and mix until combined. It should look like this:

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This was a fun photo to take - mid-whisk!

Sift the rest of the flour into the bowl and fold in with a metal spoon or a spatula - you want a nice sharp edge to cut through the batter. Once it is all mixed in, if the batter is really thick and sticky, I sometimes add a splash of milk (like, a teaspoon at a time) to loosen it a bit.

Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 cases, you should only need to fill the cases up half way.

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Pop them in the oven!
(yes, I know one of my cakes is missing - I was a bit heavy handed with the batter and ran out!)

Just a note: you shouldn't open the oven door when you're baking cakes, but if you really have to, make sure you close the door g-e-n-t-l-y or your cakes will sink like the Titanic.

Cook them for about 12 minutes, then put a cocktail stick in the middle to see if they are cooked. If they are, it will come out clean. If there is any batter on the toothpick, stick 'em back in.

Once they are all nice and cooked, take them out and pop them on a wire rack to cool.

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While they are cooling, you can make the buttercream filling.

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This is even easier. You need 50g butter and 100g icing sugar. The butter needs to be soft again. Put the butter in a (fairly roomy) bowl. Sift in the icing sugar to remove any lumpy bits. Then cream the butter and sugar together.

Stand well back for this - the icing sugar has a tendency to *pooofft* everywhere when you turn on the whisk. I speak from experience.

Halfway through the mixing, you can add a teaspoon of vanilla essence. I didn't have any and it still tasted yummy.

It should end up like this:

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You can either just spoon it into the cake, or use a piping bag, I used a piping bag because I need to practice icing, and as any messes would be covered up by the 'wings', it didn't matter how good (bad) my icing was!

Once the cakes are totally cool, put your knife into the top and cut a circle out of the top. Angle the knife in a about 45 degrees so you get a sort of cone out of the top. Cut this in half, and it becomes the wings! Sorry I don't have a photo of this, but Zoe was hanging off me at this point - so no free hands!

So, stick or pipe your icing into the dip in the top of the cake, and place the 'wings' back on top of the icing. And they should look like this:

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You can finish off with a dusting of icing sugar, or glitter, if you are so inclined!

Sit down with a cup of tea and enjoy!

Thanks for reading
Ax

8 comments:

  1. Those look lovely! I call those kind of cake butterfly cakes because of the wings.

    Thanks for the tip about closing the oven door gently- I didn't know that it made any difference! Thankfully my cakes normally rise up well enough, but will certainly be more cautious in future- always better to be safe than sorry :) xx

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    Replies
    1. I am so bad for opening the door to check my cakes! I'm surprised they ever rise!!

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  2. Looks yummi^^ Gonna try them!

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  3. Look yummy! My mum in law has that Be-ro book, she swears by it! xx

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! It's my baking bible - I made a cheese sauce from it the other day as well. And shortbread!

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  4. This is my new go to recipe. Added some chocolate chips and they were fantastic. Nice and fluffy!

    Hannah
    Best found breakthrough testimonies

    ReplyDelete

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