Summer Fête Cupcakes

Wimbledon is over, schools are starting to wind down for summer which only means one thing...summer fêtes! I have two young godchildren so regularly get roped into providing a baked contribution. If I'm honest I gladly do it for a chance to get on the bouncy castle! 

These classic vanilla cupcakes come courtesy of Nigella's "How to Be a Domestic Goddess" and are breathtakingly simple and yet always yield perfect results.

For this bake you will need:

• 125g self raising flour
• 125g butter/olive spread
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 large free range eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp milk
• 12 cupcake/muffin cases
• an electric hand whisk/very strong arms

Cream together the butter and sugar with a hand mixer. When the mixture is pale and fluffy add the eggs one at a time with a little of the self raising flour, missing well in between. After both eggs and 2/3 of the flour has been added, mix in the vanilla extract with the remaining flour and whisk well.

(don't whisk the entire bottle, poorly thought out picture alert)

Last step is to add the milk into the batter. The mixture should now have a smooth consistency that will drop off a spoon. 

Prepare 12 cupcake cases into a muffin tin and evenly divide the mixture. It will be enough even if it does look like it while you are spooning the mix. At this point you will need to bat your other half out the way and insist on using a silicone spatula to get the last of the mis from the bowl.

Place the cakes into the middle of an oven preheated to 200 degrees C or gas mark 6. Check on the cakes after 15 minutes, mine took 20 but by this point nothing my dodgy oven does would surprise me!

Take the cakes from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack. While they are cooling, it's time to make the icing. Nigella suggests to use royal icing, I used fondant icing and they turned out fine. I mixed 225g icing sugar with 4tbsp of cold water and mixed to a  thick consistency. I then added drops of food colouring in pale yellow, pink and lavender.

The sugar stars on top are optional, hundreds and thousands would work equally well but these are from Waitrose.

You may need to cut any peaks from the cakes before spreading the thick icing over the cake and into the edges.

So these didn't end up being my prettiest cupcakes due to getting distracted along the way however they are mighty tasty. Great for birthdays, charity cake sales or just a sweet edition to a BBQ.

Whats your favourite oldie but goodie cake staple??