A Sprinkle of Sequins: IMBB #13 - My Little Cupcake!

The glory of cupcakes...I was excited when it was announced by Maki that the theme for this month's Is My Blog Burning, was to be cupcakes or muffins. Now, i don't profess to be a master baker or anything, but i do like a playful bit of baking in my kitchen and so this theme had me tickled pink!

Whenever i'm baking i always feel a little more contented than usual, it makes me feel serene and happy to be home. Baking is also a temporary respite from the mundaness of everyday life, you know the kind of feeling you get in the middle of winter when the day's just seem to be going on and on and then...i'm baking and the scent and waft of wondeful things happening in my oven help me to rise above the glum and dark day.

So for this theme i decided to go with a couple of different cupcakes that relate to my recent and younger times of life. The first cupcake i offer has become a firm favourite over the last few years and i make it often. Taken from Nigella Lawson's wonderful, wonderful book How to Be a Domestic Goddess, the recipe is "Carrot Cupcakes with Cream-Cheese Icing", and i think it is my idea of cupcake heaven. Nigella suggests they go down particularly well after fish, but i think they go especially perfectly with a nice steaming hot cup of tea.

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream-Cheese Icing

Makes 12 cupcakes, using a 12 bun muffin tin, lined with muffin cases

For the Cupcakes:

100g light muscovado sugar

175ml sunflower oil

2 large eggs

225g plain flour

3/4 teaspoon bicarb of soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

zest of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 orange

150g carrots, grated

100g walnuts, chopped

For the icing:

125g cream or curd cheese

250g icing sugar, sieved

1-2 teaspoons lime juice

12 walnut halves

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C/gas mark 6.

Beat the sugar and oil together, then add the eggs one at a time. Add the flour, bicarb, cinnamon, salt and zests, then fold in the grated carrot and walnuts. Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin cases, and bake for 20 minutes. Cool on a rack and you can then start the icing.

Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until it is smooth and somewhat softened, and then beat in the icing sugar. Squeeze in lime juice to your taste.

When the cupcakes are cool, just smear the icing on top and pop a walnut half in the centre of each iced cupcake.

Now that i've introduced you to my adult choice of cupcake, it is now time to let you into my favourite cupcake of the past. The second part of this "Tale of Two Cupcakes" is one of the very first recipes i remember making as a child, and that is "Butterfly Cakes". I have very fond memories of making these gorgeous, pretty cakes with my mum when i was little and all the fun i used to have licking the spoon, and ok the bowl as well sometimes! So today, as a dedication to my wonderful mum i thought i would make these little gems...

How perfectly they turned out, just like i remembered. Wonderfully light sponge and and then the yummy buttercream, and then there was the fun part of adorning the cake with wings and then decorating the middle of the wings...this was pretty baking of the highest order, and they tasted good too! All in all a fun afternoon of baking was had and of course there were lots of appreciative tummies afterwards too..