Cupcakes - Part One

I love making cupcakes! But living in asia I didn't have an oven so I couldn't bake any. However, I'm now home so I thought I'd use the time to get in some cupcake baking.

Here's the first batch I made - they are a pretty basic recipe.

Ingredients
36 small paper patty cake cases, placed inside mini muffin tins (if you haven’t got mini tins just make them muffin-size instead)
3 eggs
1/2 cup castor sugar
3/4 cup plain flour
1 tablespoon boiling water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the icing:
1 cup icing sugar
squeeze lemon juice for lemon icing (or water and a drop or 2 of colouring and flavour such as raspberry or peppermint)

1. Use a mixer to beat the sugar and eggs together until pale and thick. The mixture should leave a trail when you lift the beater out and will be nearly treble its original size. Allow 5-8 minutes depending on how powerful your beater is (or your forearms).

2.Using a metal spoon, fold in half the flour. When that is incorporated, fold in the remaining flour. Lastly, add the hot water and vanilla.

3.Spoon the mixture into the prepared patty cases and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until golden and springy when gently pressed. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

4.To make icing
Combine the ingredients, using only as much liquid as you need to make a spreadable icing. Ice the top of each cupcake and decorate as desired.

A lolly pressed into the icing is the quickest possible decoration and the kids will be happy. Silver balls, sprinkles and ready-made edible decorations will also look lovely. I like to use the ready-made fondant icing 'Pettinice' (tinted, rolled and cut into shapes) for decorating my cup cakes.

The cupcakes were good - I can take the credit for the photo's but not the recipe. You can find it at www.healthyfoodguide.co.nz.