Flour, Cake and Pastry

Happy Thursday! I hope you all enjoyed The Great British Bake Off  last night! I'm looking forward to catching up on it when I come back from South Africa. I thought I'd share with you one of my favourite basic baking recipes: cupcakes. They're so easy and they're certainly a crowd pleaser! You can pretty much add any flavourings you want, how great is that? So this recipe makes 12 cupcakes, and enough icing to pipe a swirl on top! Simple! Ingredients: 110g self raising flour, sieved 110g caster sugar 2 large eggs 110g softened butter 120g softened butter 250g icing sugar, sieved 1tbsp milk 1tsp vanilla essence Method: Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius and line a cupcake tin with 12 cupcake cases. Beat together the flour, butter eggs and sugar for two minutes, or until a golden batter is formed, it should be thick and fluffy. Add any flavourings! Split the mix into the twelve cases. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown and a skew...

These cupcakes are the perfect solution for a warm summer's day treat. You can even have them with cream to have a scrumptious strawberries and cream dessert. Perfectly British! You can always mix up this recipe by replacing the strawberries with either raspberries, blackberries and blueberries! Just remember to change the colour of icing on top! Ingredients: 110g self-raising flour 110g caster sugar 110g softened butter 2 large eggs 110g strawberry jam 110g softened butter 225g sieved icing sugar 2tbsp milk 1tsp vanilla essence Pink food colouring Method: Pre-heat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake cases. Combine the flour, sugar, butter and eggs in a bowl and whisk together for 2 minutes or until smooth. Divide half of the mix between the paper cases, then add 1tsp of strawberry jam in the centre of each one. Top with the rest of the cake mix and transfer the tin to the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, until a skewer inserted in...