Blaaaah.... that's how I feel! I've been so hectic with work, its been crazy and I've been neglecting the blog a little. I've so much still to put up that I'm not sure where to start, so I'll start with the most recent, a batch of gorgeous blue and pink cupcakes for work. The Other Half also let me loose with his fancy camera so I've had a go at trying to get some better photos of my efforts, that are a little better than those taken so far with my phone.

Anyway, I decided that this weekend I'd bake a batch of cupcakes for work, partly because we'd all been working so damm hard over the last 6 weeks and I thought that cake would be a nice way to say a little thank you, and partly because I wanted to try out some of the techniques that I'd picked up the other week at Country Cupcakes and try out the glitter, roses and butterflies that I'd brought back with me. I didn't want to do anything too fancy taste-wise so I decided on traditional vanilla cupcakes with either buttercream or royal icing. The recipe is again one that was taught to me by my Granny many moons ago, but it is a standard recipe that I use as the basis of all my sponge cake recipes and adapt to different flavours and styles of cake... Fingers crossed, it hasn't failed me yet!

What You'll Need

8oz Vanilla Caster Sugar - some supermarkets stock vanilla sugar amongst their cooks ingredients, but the easy way is to store your caster sugar in a clean, dry jar with a spilt vanilla pod burried in the sugar; the vanilla infuses the sugar and you get fantastic vanilla sugar without the hassle

8oz Unsalted Butter- leave the butter out for a couple of hours before making the cupcakes, this helps soften the butter and it is easier to cream with the sugar if you are not using a Magimix or electric whisk

8oz Self-raising Flour

4 large fresh, free-range eggs - as usual ours came straight from the farm that morning

Vanilla Essence

What You'll Need to Do

Preheat your oven to about 180 degC

Line a 12 cake bun baking tray with individual cupcake cases, I use ones that are classed as muffin cases, this way the cake and the icing is a bit more in proportion else I find sometime the icing can be overkill to a smaller cake

Cube the butter, this makes it slighly easier to cream, and add to the Magimix mixing bowl or a large mixing bowl

Add the sugar and cream with either a the trusty Magimix, hand whisk, or a wooden spoon. I prefer using the Magimix for this part especially if the butter hasn't softened up alot; if not using the Magimix, I cream the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon as I find a hand whisk clumps the butter and I end up with my mixture covering the kitchen

When the butter and sugar is light and fluffy, add the eggs, one at a time, to the mixture; at this point I beat the eggs in by hand rather than with the Magimix

Beat each egg in really well, and if the mixture starts to curdle add a spoon of the flour to help the egg bind in; once all the eggs are bound in add a teaspoon of vanilla essence

Sieve the flour and gently fold into the cupcake mixture making sure that you don't bash the mixture as we want the cupcakes to rise and be light and fluffy in texture

Divide the mixture equally into each of the cupcake cases; I use an ice-cream scoop to measure my mixture out. Try not to fill the cases more than 2/3s full this will hepl them rise properly and cook through without over doing them

Bake the cupcakes in the oven for about 15-20 minutes; the longer you leave them in the more golden in colour and the more they will rise. If you want a more level top to your cupcakes you might want to take them out the oven sooner rather than later, but don't forget to test them and make sure they are cooked in the centre.. Partially cooked cupcakes aren't everyone's favourite. Ideally, its best to keep an eye on them, but try not to open the oven door if you can help it...

When you're ready to take your cupcakes out the oven, allow them to cool slightly in the baking tray, before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool... then you can decorate them!

I'll post up about the types of icing next as I've noticed I'm getting a fair few hits asking about how to decorate and ice cupcakes, so I think they warrant their own post and it will be easier to find them in the future. In the meantime, here's a taster of the batch that I took to work, without their gladrags on....