Wednesday 12 September 2012

recipe: classic vanilla cupcakes





Vanilla cupcakes are the "Little Black Dress" of sweet treats at a birthday celebration. If you use a good recipe, you simply can't go wrong. I mean who can say no to a fluffy cake cloud covered in creamy goodness?

I baked these for my friend Megan's birthday earlier on this week. The reason I've decided to post the recipe is because this particular one (that my Mom passed down to me) is probably the quickest, most foolproof cupcake recipe of them all. Put it this way - I made these an hour before I came to work. But as they say, seeing is believing. So try it out for yourself!

Ingredients:
125g self-raising flour
125g softened butter or margarine (I used Stork)
125g castor sugar
2 eggs
1t vanilla extract
3T milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C. 

2. Mix together all ingredients - the resulting batter should drop lightly off a spoon. 

3. Divide into 12 paper cupcake / muffin cases and bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

To make a basic buttercream icing, simply cream together 100g softened butter with 200g sifted icing sugar. Add the mixture to a piping bag and swirl buttercream onto cupcakes. Decorate accordingly.