I told Luke's teacher that I would make some cup cakes to send to his school on his birthday.
Just some simple ones as there's no baking competition in the local school and kids appreciate tasty cakes. I did scratch the bottom of the barrel trying to find out what I can make when I was told, please do not send anything with chocolate or nuts due to allergy concerns...
No chocolate, that's a bit harsh, considering, Luke doesn't like any other cakes apart from chocolate. Very occasionally, he'd take some vanilla cakes, but he's very very particular about fruits, dry or fresh in his cakes.
He doesn't like them and he prefers smooth texture.
But just butter cake, will that be a bit bland?
As long as there's no chunks of fruit. We settled down on:
Lemon Cup Cakes with Lemon Butter Icing
For 28 Cup Cakes
(including the students in his class, his teacher, the teaching aid and his speech therapist)
3 cups of Self Raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
200g salt reduced butter, room temperature
4 large eggs
1.5 cup sugar
1 cup milk
very fine zests of 2 lemon
Juice of 1.25 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla essense
Lemon Butter Icing
50g butter
100g icing sugar
1.5 tsp yellow icing
Juice of 0.75 of lemon (juice of 2 lemons in total)
Pre-heat oven to 180C
Cream butter and sugar, till light and pale, add in eggs, one by one, I used bench top mixer on high.
Add in room temperature milk and vanilla and whisk till well mixed.
Sift flour and bi-carb soda in another clean bowl and add to the milk butter mixture. Fold in well and add lemon juice and zest.
Share the batter in the cups and bake for 15-18 minutes, until it's turning a bit light brown.
For the icing, it's simple, just heat up lemon juice and butter, mix well and add in food colouring and icing sugar, till it's thick and glossy. Apply to cooled cup cakes and add on a bit of sprinkles...
This is a very basic cup cake, well, during week days I don't normally have a lot of time for baking.
By the time I finish work, chase the children for dinner, home work, piano and whatever they need to do, put them to bed, it's usually 9:00 pm...
Wouldn't even be able to bake the simplest cakes without hubby's help...
Anyway, Monique's turning 4 in a couple of days and we are only having a small party at home. The house might be able to cater for more guests once we finalise the renovation and have a proper out door area.
So, like what I do for Luke every year for his birthday, I baked some cup cakes for her to share with all her kinder friends. It would be nicer if she could have a whole big bake, but sometimes, it's just not practical, and I'm not sure if the kinder has got all the plates etc, and cup cakes are just easier. Pink ones for the girls, blue for the boys.
Margaret Fulton's basic butter cake recipe for the chocolate cakes, and her butter cream frosting recipe for the frosting. It's a very old cook book, and it comes in handy all the time.
Her basic butter cake recipe uses 2 egg portion, increase the quantity if needed.
125g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup self raising flour - sifted
1 table spoon hot water
I added 30g cocoa powder and a bit extra water.
Cream butter and sugar together till light and fluffy, beat in eggs, one by one, adding a bit of flour when adding the second egg.
fold in the remaining flour with a metal spoon and add in hot water.
Fill up 3/5 of the cup cake cases and bake in pre-heated 180C (350F) oven till ready.
Basic butter cream frosting:
125g butter
2 table spoon milk
1.5 cup icing sugar - sifted.
Beat the butter with half of sugar until smooth, add the remaining sugar, beat till creamy
For chocolate frosting, add
2 table spoon cocoa powder with 2 table spoon hot water, cool.
then add to mixture with only 1 table spoon of water.
I added some hundreds and thousands for some fun for the children...
