Pretty Little Lavender Fairy Cakes Cupcakes Food

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.

GUINNESS CUPCAKES

Steps:

• For the cake:.
• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius (325 Farenheit).
• In a pan, on the hob on a low heat, melt butter and Guinness together.
• Keep pan on heat, so long as the mixture isn't bubbling too much and add cocoa and sugar.
• Beat the sour cream with the egg and the vanilla. This will look like you've scrambled the egg, don't be concerned.
• Stir sour cream and egg mixture into the pan.
• Combine baking soda and sifted flour in a separate bowl. It's important to do this because the baking soda is going to react with the wet ingredients.
• Stir in the flour/baking soda mix to the mix in the pan. You will get what looks like brownie mix. Dark in colour, brilliant smelling.
• Pour this mix into cupcake cases in a cupcake tin. (For British people, this recipe makes what we would think of as muffin sized cakes, so use muffin cases and a muffin tin) Aim to fill the cakes two/thirds of the case, but you'll probably go over.
• Put in the oven for approximately 25 minutes. They will go from not ready to ready very quickly, so be careful not to burn them.
• Cool on a wire rack.
• For the icing:.
• Beat together the icing sugar and the butter. I use my hands for this, but a paddle mix would do just as well. The mix should look ever so slightly yellow in colour when you're done.
• Add the cream cheese and stir in all the sugar/butter mix.
• Beat until stiff.
• This makes a very stiff icing and I pipe it onto the cupcakes, but if you use a warm spatula you should be able to get it moving enough to coat the cupcakes from that. The stiffer the icing is, the more like a little pint of Guinness your cupcake will look.

COCONUT AND MANDARIN CUPCAKES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375F and grease/paper-line a muffin pan.
• In a large bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, oil, orange juice and peel, if using and mix well.
• Do the same with the dry ingredients in a seperate bowl then mix into the wet ingredients; stirring just until moistened. Fold in the mandarins and white chocolate chips.
• Spoon mixture into muffin cups about 2/3 full.
• Combine the topping ingredients and sprinkle over each muffin.
• Bake muffins for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.