Kid friendly cupcakes for birthdays partys

These are really simple to make with a mixer or electric whisk. They are easy to make with very little help from a young age. They don't taste great, there is less butter in them than my usual fairy cakes and I miss the salty butteriness, so I would say that they need a little something added chocolate chips, dried fruit,  jam in the middle, or frosting on top, to add flavour.  Be warned though this does yield about 24 cupcakes but they can be frozen provided they are not iced/frosted.  And lets be honest buns are a staple of any kids birthday party.

Dry ingredients
3 cups self raising flour
1 cup sugar

Wet ingredients
4 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk
6 tbsp melted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 175 c
2. Add dry ingredients to a mixing bowl.
3. Crack each egg separately into a bowl (like a soup bowl) before adding to a larger bowl (I use a batter bowl or Pyrex jug). This is so you can deal with egg shells, bad eggs and double yolks. Add the cup of milk and vanilla and whisk it with a fork.
4. Pop the butter in the microwave and let it melt it should take less than a minute. Allow to cool before adding to the wet mix and giving it a stir.
5. Add the wet mix to the dry mix and switch on the mixer to get it going until the batter is smooth 3mins or so but don't forget to scrape down the sides with a spatula and give it another quick mix.
6. To help measuring out evenly I use an ice cream scoop.
7. Bake in the oven for 10-15 mins until nice and brown and a cocktail stick or skewer comes out clean.

Post Birthday Party reward for the Mammies:
When you get the kids to bed after the party treat yourself to some Kahlua (or Tia Maria) and Baileys Cupcakes.
If you make chocolate buns hold back some of the batter and add a little Kahlua to the buns.  Make up some buttercream icing but instead of adding cream or milk but the frosting use Baileys lots of Baileys and this time of year you'll get Irish Cream Liquer chocolates in Lidl. Just saying you might be worth it.

I'm quite fond of marshmallow fondant icing

Ever thought that fondant tastes like pants - yeah me too! This is fondant icing that is easy to make and tastes good.  The recipe below specifies mini marshmallow but marshmallows chopped up to the same size works fine.  Cups refer to have a standard mug size.  You will need extra icing sugar for dusting and I would get a travel spray bottle with a little water in it to get rid of the dustiness (vodka works better but not always practical, especially with kids cakes)

White Marshmallow Fondant
4 Cups of White Mini Marshmallows
4 cups of Icing Sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Coloured Marshmallow Fondant
Gel food colouring (the more gel the stronger the colour
4 Cups of White Mini Marshmallows
4 cups of Icing Sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Brown or Black Marshmallow Fondant Icing
2 tubes of gel colour will give you dark brown with this recipe
4 Cups of Mini Marshmallows
1.5 cups of Cocoa
3.5 cups of icing sugar
2 Tbsp Water

Method

1. Measure out the marshmallows into a bowl.  Sprinkle the water on top and into the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until they are melted.
2. If you're adding colour, now's the time squeeze it on in there.
3. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa if you're using it.  It will seem like there's too much but I promise you'll need it all.
4. Start by working the marshmallow away from the edges of the bowl using plenty of the icing sugar to prevent your fingers from sticking.
5. Tip the contents of the bowl onto a surface and then knead for all your worth to encorporate all the icing sugar.  The final result should be smooth and elastic.  As it cools it becomes less malliable (great word) but a few seconds in the microwave will sort that out.

Oreo Brownies

I'm going to shamelessly poach my own blog with this recipe.  The oreos soften and disintegrate and become part of the brownie itself giving depth to the brownie, if such a thing is possible.  Worth a try.
 
 1 packet of regular or Double Stuffed oreos
1 batch of brownie mix

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 170C.  Grease an 8"/20cm square tin (brownie tin).  
2. Spread a thick layer of brownie batter on the bottom of the tin and place the peeled creme eggs at regular intervals until the tin is divided equally into 12/16 pieces
3. Cover with the remaining batter trying to keep everything in its place.
4. Bake for 20mins or until its cooked but still fudgy.  Leave in the tin to cool.
5. Cut them up (pizza cutter comes in handy here)
6. Eat.

Creme Egg Brownies

 The Cadburys Cream egg time of year is short lived (between January and April).  Apparently they make them year round and freeze them to deal with the quantities.  Years ago Eoin brought me home a whole box of 48 of them and I've eaten them in moderation ever since- tasty, but very sweet.  

You could make these as surprise cupcakes too.

 1 bag of mini creme eggs
1 batch of brownie mix

Method 

1. Freeze creme eggs in their little foil wrappers.
2. Preheat the oven to 170C.  Grease an 8"/20cm square tin (brownie tin).  
3. Spread a thick layer of brownie batter on the bottom of the tin and place the peeled creme eggs at regular intervals until the tin is divided equally into 12 pieces (mark the side with the four eggs with a little batter to make it easier when your cutting up the brownies)
4. Cover with the remaining batter trying to keep everything in its place.
5. Bake for 20mins or until its cooked but still fudgy.  Leave in the tin to cool.
6. Cut them up (pizza cutter comes in handy here)
7. Eat.

Sweet Potato Beignet

I originally posted pics of these beignets back in October 2012 but I was too lazy to post the recipe.  They are teeny tiny little morsels of doughnutty yumminess rolled in cinnamon sugar with the semi-redeeming quality of being filled with beta carotene.  To those of us on the eastern side of the Atlantic the whole sweet potato thing can seem like too much of a gastronomic oxymoron but since I first discovered them making baked sweet potato fries, I have become a huge fan in either savoury or sweet dishes. I believe that these are from the Louisiana part of the world by way of the french colonists.

The recipe calls for vegtable oil but avoid the olive oils and other strong flavoured oils because it will ruin the flavour.  Suggestions would be Rapeseed oil or sunflower oil.

 Serve with custard, syrup, maple sweetened marscapone, ice-cream.  The recipe says it serves 6 but its hard to count them if their eaten just as they come out of the pan.

3 small sweet potatoes
300g sugar
3 eggs
190g Plain Flour
2tbsp baking powder
2.5tbsp Cinnamon
pinch of salt
pinch of nutmeg
vegtable oil for frying

1. Preheat the oven to 170C.  Peel and chop the sweet potatoes then pop them in the microwave for 5 minutes with a little water at the bottom of the dish to help them steam.  Then into the oven they go until they are soft and mashable.  Then mash away to your hearts content and let them cool.
2. Beat the eggs sugar and sweet potatoes together in a big bowl (you'll need this because this is the bowl that you will add the dry ingredients to).
3. Heat the cooking oil to 180C 
4. Sift together the dry ingredients - Flour, baking powder, .5 tbsp cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.  Fold them in bit by bit using a silicone spatula.
5. Using two tablespoons spoon drop generous tablepoons of the mix into the hot oil.  Flip them to ensure an even tone.  Cook in batches and don't overfill the the fryer (or the pot with the oil in it) or it will reduce the temperature of the oil too much and you will have soggy beignets.
6. Rescue them when they are cooked evenly and drain on some kitchen paper.
7. Roll in cinnamon sugar and eat, and eat and eat and......

Recipe pilfered and adapted from Food & Wine Magazine it's one of Donal Skehans

Sweet Potato Muffins

 I had a load of sweet potatoes in the fridge peeled, chopped and bobbing in a bowl of water, leftovers from a red onion parmentier thingy and I figured I would use them up. 

These are more breakfast type muffins, healthier than those that you get at service stations etc and super moist.   I am on a bit of a breakfast muffin kick at the moment and I stockpile them in the freezer and have them in work for breakfast.  At the moment I have these, banana muffins, and apple muffins which taste lovely but there are a few tweaks needed in the recipe before I post it.

The measurements are in cups and I've left them that way because it's a very straightforward recipe using cups.  The recipe I originially used didn't include either nuts or sultanas but I like bits in my muffins.  I found these a little bitter to be honest and I would be inclined to up the soft brown sugar to a cupful of packed soft brown sugar.  The other thing I did was to perforate them and pour over a little maple syrup while they were still warm so that they would soak it up.  The original recipe also said that it was for 12 muffins which I filled but then I also filled 10 bun cases too because I ran out of muffin tins.

Two things I mentioned before with regards to muffins but they are quite useful so I'll say 'em again.
First up: in order to measure out even quantities use an ice-cream scoop it's one of those things that's so easy but makes life so much easier when you're making muffins.  Secondly preheat the oven as hot as you can get it and when you put your muffins in reduce down to 170-180c; it will give you well risen muffins.

The dry ingredients:
2 cups of Self Raising Flour
1/2tsp ground cinnamon (or more if you like)
1/2tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup of soft brown sugar
a handful of pecans and sultanas
The wet ingredients
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 cup vegtable oil
1 tsp Vanilla
1 cup sweet potato cooked and mashed.

1. Preheat the oven as per instructions above and slip the muffins cases into their tins.
2. In the first bowl whisk together the dry ingredients and make a little hole in the middle.
3. Mix the wet ingredients together (you can probably use the whisk again for this just make sure the ingredients are well mixed)
4. Pour the wet ingredient into the dry and mix well.
5. Scoop into the cases, pop into the oven and reduce the temp.  15-20mins later they should spring back to the touch and if you stick a skewer in them they should be done.

Raspberry Friands

So here's the story.  I got my grubby little paws on some amazing eggs from my mates Bren and Hazel's chuckens.  But the question was what to bake that was worthy of such lovely eggs?  The answer is contained in this recipe.  Sweet and moist with the juicy contrast of the berries, they are simply divine.  There are a lot of egg whites in this and I made a deliciously rich custard from the leftover yolks.  - Happy Eating

75g Plain Flour

240g Icing Sugar

125g Ground Almonds

6 egg whites lightly whipped

150g melted butter cooled

150g Raspberries frozen or fresh

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c.  Grease muffin tin.
2. Sieve together flour and icing sugar.  Stir in the ground almonds.
3. Add melted butter and egg whites and mix well.
4. Using an ice-cream scoop measure out 12 portions.  Place 4-5 berries in each friand.
5. Bake for 25 mins until golden brown.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

When I first discovered red velvet cake I was truly weirded out by it but it is wonderful and frivolous and most importantly delicious. This recipe is provided by Miss Laoise Curtin a fellow avid baker and niece.  Below are some notes of hers.

I've researched and tried this recipe and found that the butter milk can be substituted with normal milk and a couple of teaspoons of clear vinegar .

Ingredients

60g of unsalted softened butter

150g caster sugar

1 large egg

20g cocoa powder 

1x 1oz bottle of red food colouring

1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract

120ml buttermilk (110ml of normal milk with 10 ml of clear vinegar)

150g plain flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 1/2 teaspoon clear vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees and line a cupcake tin 
2. Cream the softened butter an sugar
3. Add the egg to the mixture.
4.  In a separate bowl, mix the cocoa powder ,the food colouring and the vanilla together
5. Mix the red mixture and the light mixture together
6. Add the buttermilk to the now combined red mixture 
7. Add the flour
8. Add the bicarbonate of soda and the vinegar
9. Mix IMMEDIATELY as the reaction of the bread soda and vinegar is going on at that moment.Get the in the oven as fast as possible and bake for 20-25 minutes.

For the icing

Mix 50g of softened butter and 125g of cream cheese .Then add 300g icing sugar.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

So it was that armed with my tin of Libbys Pumpkin, I attempted to make a pumpkin pie - I failed miserably and it just tasted nasty.  I did say all these were tasted and tested recipes.  So for those with an inclination towards the Thanksgiving fruit I would suggest that you take a look at my nía Máirtín's recipe for Pumpkin Cupcakes.  They fall into that wonderful category of sweet spice cake like carrot cake or Zucchini Bread.

Basic Cupcake/Muffin Recipe

Before you start, if you haven't already, read the posting on Everything you ever wanted to know about cupcakes but were afraid to ask, it's not everything but it's everything I could think of. Know this you can tweak this basic recipe so that you can make all sorts of weird and wonderful cakes (the one in this image has a basic cupcake mix with a little lemon rind for flavouring and the frosting is marscapone, icing sugar and lemon with a little lemon rind on top. If I'm honest the cupcakes were lovely really fluffy nice and moist too but the frosting



100g Sugar
100g Butter
100g Self Raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 Eggs

1. Preheat oven to 200c
2. Cream Butter and Sugar until it pales in colour in an electric mixer.
3. Add eggs one at time making sure that each was mixed thoroughly
4. Sift Flour and add to the mix on a low until the flour is combined and then increase the speed for one minute.
5. Divide into 6 muffin or 12 cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 mins (depending on cake size) or until a skewer comes out clean.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about cupcakes but were afraid to ask

• Cupcakes are also known as fairy cakes, queen cakes or buns
• The muffins that I am referring to are American style muffins rather than the English style teacakes that are called English muffins
• If you ask me the main difference between cupcakes and muffins is size if the recipe says you'll get 12 cupcakes it means you will get 6 muffins.
• Use muffin or cupcake tins so that the cakes stay in shape
• You can line a cupcake tin with paper cases or squares of greaseproof or parchment paper
• If you don't line the cases with paper make sure that you grease the tins really well
• You can evenly measure out 3/4 filling of a muffin case using an ice-cream scoop (this speeds things up considerably)
• The range and scope of muffins/cupcakes are only limited by your imagination
• Cupcakes got a resurgence in popularity thanks to the cupcakes of New Yorks famed Magnolia Bakery as featured in Sex and the City
• You can use silicone ice cube trays in the oven to make mini cupcakes which are even smaller than mini muffins and are best covered completely in frosting or chocolate and treated like chocolate truffles
• To make raspberry buns, add a spoonful of the cake batter to the paper case followed by a tsp of raspberry jam, then followed by another spoonful of the cake batter and bake as usual
• To make butterfly buns; cut the top off a cup cake and cut the top down the middle to form two halves (these will be the wings). Put a layer of jam followed by a layer of butter icing on top of the cake. Place the two wings on the cake and dust with icing sugar
• Drunken ratinis (these were always a hit at our birthday parties when we were kids theres no alcohol in them the drunken refers to the way in which the the decorations inevitably slides: Take the bun and attach a marshmallow to the top with a little melted chocolate. Cut to holes in the top of the marshmallows and insert to chocolate buttons to form ears. Use strawberry shoelaces to make whiskers and use melted chocolate to draw the remaining rat features
• Coconut buns: In one saucer place a little jam and warm in the microwave. In the second saucer place a little desiccated coconut. Dip each bun in the jam and then in coconut.