Teeny Tiny Cupcakes + Stickers
Soft buttery miniature cupcakes with pale creamy frosting...and watercolour stickers from one of my favourite stationery stores. I made these cupcakes on a grey Sunday afternoon whilst watching Grand Designs. Outside the rain was being pushed sideways by the wind...and the decking furniture almost took off `Wizard of Oz' style. In between all of this, Riley snored with one eye open, hoping I would drop some crumbs in his direction :)
Lately I've been craving a classic butter cake with frosting...no extra impossible to source ingredients...no competing flavours...not even chocolate (no...this blog hasn't been hijacked...it's still me :) You know those typical American style slab cakes with copious creamy frosting that that show up for birthdays in TV shows? I think I saw one in an episode last week, and the craving just snowballed from there.
Lucky for me I had the perfect excuse to bake...two work birthdays...one in Luke's office and one in mine. Then I remembered Mum gave me a silicone mini cupcake `tin' for Christmas...which reminded me of that episode of Friends where Ross uses mini muffins to try and win an apartment bid...so I was sold. My go-to cupcake recipe is from Marie Claire Kitchen, and the mould for the mini cupcakes is like this one. After I filled up my mini cupcake tray, I made a few regular sized ones too...just because you have to wait for the mini silicone tray to cool right down before you pop the cupcakes out (otherwise they stick to the surface whilst warm) and I was too impatient to do more than one batch of the teensy ones!
Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 180 degrees (350F). Beat 175g (6oz) of softened unsalted butter with 175g (6oz) of super fine sugar in a mixing bowl until pale and creamy. Add 3 eggs, 1/2 cup milk, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Stir to combine, then fold in 1 1/2 cups of sifted self raising flour. Spoon batter into patty cases (or mini muffin tin) and bake for approx 15-20 minutes for full sized cupcakes...about 7 minutes for mini ones. Remove from tin when cool. Makes 12 regular, 24 mini.
Icing
Blend 1 cup sifted icing sugar and 1 tablespoon of softened unsalted butter into a mixing bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of water, orange juice, or milk.
(I like to mess with my icing a little bit. I do the above up to the butter part...then I add about a tablespoon of thickened cream, and half to one teaspoon of vanilla extract because I like the vanilla bean flecks. Then I play with extra icing sugar and small drips of milk until it gets to the consistency I want...and sometimes I add a little squeeze of lemon juice to balance out the flavour if I don't want it to be super sugary tasting. This time I used a tiny bit of gel food colouring to get a super pale almost skin tone pink)
Loving the Kikki K `Dreaming' Sticker & Gift Tags book...because they match my current obsession with all things watercolour. I popped a couple of these stickers on the tiny teacup in the photos just for fun :)
Ross and the Mini Muffin Bribe
Do you agree that the classics never goes out of style? Or do you prefer to think outside the box and make something that hasn't been done before? I converted my comment box over to Disqus (which includes being able to use your Facebook or Twitter ID's as well)...would love you to hear what you think :)