Valentines Day Vanilla Cupcakes

Good morning my lovelies, I hope you are all embracing that Monday morning feeling and the caffeine intakes are being topped up. As I'm sure you all know yesterday was Valentine's Day so I thought I would make some Valentines inspired cupcakes. Yet again any excuse to bake. I chose to bake vanilla cupcakes which I then coloured either pink or red. These are then topped with a vanilla buttercream and pink sugar sprinkles. I just think that these are a bit of fun and that they look really cute. They also taste really yummy which is an added bonus.

Ingredients - makes 12

110g unsalted butter
110g caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
110g self-raising flour
red food colouring
pink food colouring

Buttercream:
140g unsalted butter
280g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
pink sprinkles


Method

1) Preheat your oven to 180°C/ 160°Fan/ Gas mark 4 and line a muffin tin with cupcake paper cases. I used a combination of red and pink for Valentines Day (pink for the pink cupcakes and red for the red cupcakes)

2) Cream the butter and sugar together until light, pale and fluffy

3) Gradually beat in the eggs and stir in the vanilla extract

4) Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon

5) Divide the cake mixture in half amongst two separate bowls

6) In one bowl stir in red food colouring to the mixture and pink into the other bowl. These can be as bright or pale as you like it's just a bit of fun for Valentines Day

7) I then poured my pink mixture into the pink cases and the red mixture into the red cases

8) Bake the cupcakes in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cupcakes. The top of the cake should feel springy when you lightly press on top of the cakes

9) Allow the cakes to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire wrack to cool completely

10) For the buttercream icing, beat your butter and vanilla extract together

11) Sift in the icing sugar in stages and beat this into the butter, you may find you need to add a splash of water if the mixture is too firm

I find that icing is quite a personal preference. I really don't like overly buttery icing, I prefer buttercream with a greater sugar to butter ratio. The sugar gives the icing that added sweetness and you then don't have the buttery taste or yellow colour that I don't like. I didn't actually use this recipe for the buttercream. I used the same method although the quantities and ratios of each ingredient will have varied. For me the icing is a bit of trial and error. I started off with a really small amount of butter maybe around 25g. I then gradually beated in more and more icing sugar along with splashes of water until I had made enough icing. If you are a bit unsure on icing I included the quantities above as a rough guide to making a buttercream. 

12) Once the cakes are completely cool you can pipe the icing onto the cakes using a piping bag and nozzle. I then decorated the cupcakes with some pretty pink sprinkles but you can be really creative with your decorations

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post my lovelies. I know Valentine's Day is now over for another year but you could make these all year round. You don't even have to colour the sponges. You could use this as a standard vanilla cupcake recipe which I have a strong belief that a good vanilla cupcake recipe should be a staple in every household. I hope you enjoy the rest of your days my lovelies.

XXX