Pretty Little Lavender Fairy Cakes Cupcakes Food

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!

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!

LAVENDER CUPCAKES

Steps:

• CUPCAKES:.
• Preheat the oven to 350°F; line a 12 count muffin pan with paper liners.
• Put the sugar and lavender flowers in a food processor. Process briefly to combine.
• Tip the lavender sugar into a bowl with the butter and beat together until pale and fluffy.
• Beat the eggs into the butter mixture, one at a time, then sift in the flour and fold gently. Stir in the milk, then spoon the mixture into the muffin cups.
• Bake for about 18 minutes until risen and golden and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
• DECORATING:.
• To decorate, gradually beat the confectioners' sugar into the egg white in a bowl, then add a few drops of food coloring and stir to achieve a lavender-colored icing.
• Spoon the icing over the cupcakes, then top each one with a sprig of fresh lavender or candy sprinkles. Let set before serving.

PRETTY LITTLE LAVENDER FAIRY CAKES - CUPCAKES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6 and line a 12-bun tin with paper cases.
• Put all the ingredients for the fairy cakes, except for the milk, into the bowl and mix well with a hand held mixer for about 2-3 minutes.
• Mix once more, adding enough milk to make a batter with a smooth texture.
• Pour the fairy cake batter into the waiting cake cases.
• Bake for about 10 to 15 minutes, by which time the sponge should be cooked through and springy to the touch.
• Remove from the oven, leave for 5 minutes or so, then arrange the fairy cakes in their paper cases on a wire rack to cool.
• Whilst they are cooling, make the icing.
• I like this to be pale violet in colour and to run off the cakes slightly - not too thick. So add the water to the icing sugar and gradually add the food colouring until the desired colour has been reached. The icing should be fairly loose, but not too runny.
• Top each fairy cake with the icing - it does NOT matter if it drizzles down the sides of the cake cases!
• Top each fairy cake with a little sprig of lavender before the icing's set dry.