Gorgeous Little Butterfly Cakes Or Fairy Cakes Food

BUTTERFLY CUPCAKES (TRADITIONAL BRITISH BUTTERFLY CAKES)

Steps:

• In a stand mixer or using a handheld mixer, cream the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. It will begin to pale in color, too.
• Add about one third of the beaten eggs, and mix well at medium speed.
• Then add about a third of the sifted flour. Repeat this step. Add the rest of the eggs and mix well, then turn the mixer to low and add the final flour. Just mix until well combined.
• Fill the cupcake liners half full with the batter and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when placed in the center of a cupcake.
• Remove cupcakes from the tin, place on cooling rack and allow to cool completely. When ready to decorate, cut out the center of each cupcake, angling the knife at a 45º angle.
• Then cut the loose piece in half to resemble butterfly wings. Place a small amount of jam in the center. Follow with a dollop of cream (or buttercream, if desired). You can also pipe the cream like I did. Next, place the "wings" on top.
• Repeat with all of the cupcakes, then dust each one generously with powdered sugar. Serve immediately, or refrigerate until ready to serve.

GORGEOUS LITTLE BUTTERFLY CAKES OR FAIRY CAKES!

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 190° C or 375°F.
• Have ready between 12 -18 paper cases depending on size. Small pie or cake tins will take standard paper cases. These cakes SHOULD be small and dainty and NOT standard "muffin" size. (However, you can make them bigger and adjust the cooking time by 5 minutes.).
• Cream butter or margarine with sugar until light, fluffy and pale in colour. By hand is best but a hand whisk is fine too!
• Beat the eggs and add them bit by bit with spoons of sifted flour. Bit by bit ensures the mixture does not curdle.
• Gently fold in an any flour left over when the egg is used up.
• Add the vanilla or any other flavourings desired - lemon and orange is good too! If the mixture is a little too stiff add a little milk or juice of orange/lemon.
• Half fill the paper cases with the mixture and bake for about 15 minutes until risen and firm but NOT too dark.
• Cool cakes and then cut a slice from the top of each cake and cut this in half.
• Place a little butter icing of your choice on the top of each cake and arrange the "wings" around the icing - round edge facing the outside and the cut edge to the inside and angled towards the bottom - like BUTTERFLY or FAIRY wings! Dust with extra icing sugar and watch them fly away!
• If you want to add colouring to the vanilla cakes, pink is really good with pink icing too! I once sprinkled on crystallised rose petals for a Christening Party & I also used rose essence in the butter icing, very sophisticated!
• N.B. You can multiply this recipe very easily, e.g: 6 ozs of butter, flour & sugar to 3 eggs; 8 ozs of butter, flour and sugar to 4 eggs & so on! It also makes VERY good big Victoria Sponge cakes - just slice and fill with a filling of your choice -- lemon curd, butter icing, fresh whipped cream & jam -- the list is endless!

LEMON TOP FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 195°C.
• Mix all the cake ingredients in a food processor (with or without chocolate chips) and place 3 heaped tsp in each cake case. Bake in the centre of the oven for 15-20 minutes and leave on a wiring rack to cool for a good 30 minutes (if you can resist 'em!). Only ice when cold.
• For the icing, mix together the 3 ingredients with a fork. If the consistency is too runny, add more icing sugar. Check how lemony the icing is before adding just a tad of food colouring if you prefer them to have that lemon touch! The icing should be almost like a paste, in order for it to stiffen on each fairy cake.

FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Line a 12 cup muffin tin with baking cups.
• Put all the ingredients except for the milk into a food processor and blend until smooth. Pulse while adding the milk down the funnel to make for a soft consistency.
• It doesn't seem like enough, but you can get enough into each baking cup, just scrape it all out and try to fill each one equally.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes or until they are golden on top.
• Cool on a wire rack, but remove from the tin as soon as possible.
• Before you decorate, slice off any mounded tops so you have a flat surface to decorate. Icing: Mix the sugar, egg white and lemon juice in a small bowl until smooth and creamy, it should have the consistency of heavy cream I always break the batch into smaller batches so I can have different colors When my girlfriend made these for my shower, she frosted them with a bright pink icing, sprinkled them with iridescent edible glitter and topped it with an edible (gum paste) rosebud.
• Very very cute!
• In the cookbook they show them topped with rosebuds and little sugared daisies and fresh berries and they even made a spiderweb with black and white icing.
• Use your imagination, the flat tops give lots of room to be creative!

LEMON CURD BUTTERFLY CAKES

Steps:

• Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5/375F/190°C.
• You will need a 12-cup muffin tin lined with cupcake baking cases.
• To make the cakes, sift the flour and salt in a bowl.
• Then add in the rest of the ingredients in bowl and beat until absolutely smooth - 1-2 minutes.
• Then fill prepared muffin tin with the mixture and tap the tin two or three times to settle the cake mix.
• Bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the cakes are well risen and golden.
• Remove the cakes from the tin and transfer onto a wire rack and leave to cool.
• To make the lemon curd, place the grated lemon rind and sugar in a bowl.
• In another bowl, whisk the lemon juice together with the eggs, then pour the mixture over the sugar.
• Add the butter cut into small pieces, and place the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.
• Stir frequently till thickened - for about 20 minutes.
• Cool the curd before using it for the filling (these can be stored in a clean dry jar with a screw-top lid, refrigerated and used within a week).
• To assemble the cake, take a small sharp knife and cut the top off each at an angle in a circle about ½ inch (1 cm) from the edge of the cake so that you remove a cone-shaped round, leaving a cavity in the centre.
• Cut the round in half, top to bottom, and set aside.
• Now fill the cavity of each cake with the lemon curd then sit the two cone-shaped pieces of cake on top like butterfly wings.
• Dust with icing sugar to serve.