Cupcakes

I’ve been appallingly lax recently when it’s come to cooking. This started because I went on a bit of a healthy eating kick, stuffing my face with salad, fresh fruit, raw veg and, because it’s surprisingly rather tasty, chocolate Slim Fast. I also gave up smoking and realised that if I started making flapjacks or similar I’d end up eating my body weight, growling and clawing at anyone who came near me unless they had ten B&H clutched in their sweaty paw to exchange for safe passage.

Unfortunately the diet has hit a wall. And that wall is made of pizza, Sainsbury’s ready-meals and large quantities of McDonalds – which we all know has miracle properties when it comes to curing hangovers. And I’m too busy trying to keep twelve cigarettes continuously lit and balanced in my gob to bother pre-heating the oven.

This week though I am really going to pull my socks up. No more Butterkist sea salt organic popcorn! No more ‘I’m a bit hungover so I’ll take the lift rather than the stairs’! No more… no more full fat Coke. I’m not looking forward to it so I’m going to ease myself in with cupcakes.

Ingredients:
4 eggs (free range of course, dahling)
225g of sugar
225g of self-raising flower
225g of unsalted butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 180°c, or two hundred if it’s a bit rubbish like mine.

Put the eggs and the sugar in a bowl and whisk together until the mixture is nice and fluffy and light. I used caster sugar rather than normal sugar – this is because I’m a bit of a rebel and definitely not because I picked up the wrong bag in the supermarket – but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference. Add the flour and the melted butter bit by bit, folding it in. From many hours spent in front of the telly I know it’s best to not over mix flour in to cake batter as it means you end up with a heavy cake. I had a bit of a panic because it seemed like I was folding the flour in forever but when I made a second lot it was far easier when the flour was sifted.

The recipe I used suggested using a tartlet tray but as (surprise!) I don’t have one I just used two cake cases and this worked just fine, and after some experimenting I found out a single one did too. Anyway, do whatever you like I’m not your mum. They go in the hot oven for 10-15 minutes until the tops are a lovely golden colour and if you stick a knife through them it comes out clean and not covered in cake goo.

Mine do seem quite nice but of course the test is taking them in to work tomorrow. The boys in the office have scoffed down the several large tins of shortbread I’ve taken in so I’ll have to see if they like these.



There’s also the issue of icing. I attempted a chocolate butter cream icing to go with the cupcakes/fairycakes (I don’t know the difference. I’m not even sure there is one.) but it went a little skew-whiff.

The recipe I have is very simple. It’s just:
170g of icing sugar
110g of butter
55g of sifted cocoa powder

Apparently these just get whipped together and make a delicious cake topping. I tried this and ended up something that was basically some brown lumps in powder. I popped the bowl in the microwave for thirty seconds to melt the butter in case that helped but it just turned it in to goop. So I chucked a bit of skimmed milk in, got stuck in with the electric whisk and it tastes divine but is very, very light so I haven’t been able to put it on my cupcakes yet as it wont set enough for me to put them in a tin. Instead it’s sitting in a plastic pot in the fridge and hopefully can be spooned on to the cakes just before they’re eaten. But not by me of course. A moment on the lips etc etc.