So it begins… After a long time of ‘no, I don’t have time for this’ or ‘it’s effort to keep updated’, I have decided to stop procrastinating and start blogging. I guess now is as good a time as any to express my thanks to everyone who has encouraged me to start and shown genuine interest in my recipes and methods. I hope you find my blog useful. For anyone else, here’s some background info; I’m 20 years old and a law student at uni. I spend my free time in the gym or baking and frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. In the kitchen, I like to experiment and try new things but sometimes it doesn’t work, and I’m okay with that. It usually just requires a few tweaks here and there and bob’s your uncle it works perfectly. I’ll be sure to include any mishaps and mess ups, complete with instructions on how to fix it if it all goes hideously wrong!

So I thought it would be appropriate to start with one of the bakes that got me a name for baking.. Very simple and unparalleled in taste, the humble vanilla cupcake. I use the Hummingbird Bakery recipe and it’s never failed me. Ever. It’s fairly forgiving and not sickly sweet or greasy. Mainly because it’s a glorified batter. Milk binds the mixture and gives the finest and lightest crumb. It’s important to use proper butter in baking and no ‘spreads’ or oils. Trust me, you can taste the difference.

Ingredients:

This quantity makes about 18 cupcakes.

240g plain flour

280g golden caster sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

80g room temperature salted butter

pinch of salt

240ml milk

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp good quality vanilla extract OR seeds of 1/2 vanilla pod

Adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery

Method:

First, preheat your oven to 170° FAN (increase the temperature by 10 or so degrees if not using a fan-assisted oven).

Add the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt into a mixer. Mix until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Then in a measuring jug, mix the milk, vanilla and two eggs. With the mixer on low, slowly add the milk mixture to the dry mixture, it will come together quickly. Add all of the milk mixture to the batter, stopping the mixer and scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go along. Do not be alarmed at how runny the cake batter is, it’s meant to be like that!

Line a cupcake tin (not a shallow bun tin) with paper liners and fill the cases 2/3 full, taking care not to overfill. Place on a central shelf in your oven for 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown. To make sure your cakes are cooked they should spring back when lightly touched and a cake skewer or toothpick should come out clean when inserted into the centre of the cakes.

Leave your cupcakes to cool completely before attempting to ice them.

You can frost your cupcakes however you like, I am going to do separate posts on different types of frosting and icing as it all depends on the kind of cupcake you want.

For my swiss meringue buttercream recipe click here

For my american frosting recipe click here

If you have any questions or queries feel free to comment below and I will get back to you and try and help 🙂