Sweet and Simple Bakes: Vanilla Cupcakes

Sweet and Simple Bakes: Vanilla Cupcakes

You know, I was sooo furious over the omission of my previous entry to favourite SSB monthly round up. And I swear to stay off all the future entries! Tsk tsk. Did I hear the little birds say petty???

But on the very last day, I gave up resisting the sweet and simple recipe, and got down to bake it. I wanted to try cos this is an all-in-one method; no creaming, no whisking. Just mix everything together and bake. I have seen this method used in many books but doubtful of the results.

It coming from SSB gives a different level of confidence :-)



Vanilla Cupcake (All-in-1 Method)
Recipe is taken from here
Yield 12 cupcake

175g self-raising flour
1½ level tsp baking powder (* see note 1)
175g butter, softened
175g caster (superfine) sugar - I used 110g
3 large eggs (* see note 2)
2 tbsp milk (* see note 2)
1 tsp vanilla extract (* see note 2)

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/Fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
Sift the self-raising flour and baking powder into a large bowl, and then add the butter, caster sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla extract. Beat together until well mixed, trying not to over mix the mixture.
Spoon the mixture equally into the prepared paper cases and bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed.
Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out to completely cool on a wire rack.

My Notes:

I'm not sure if it's too much leavening cos self rising flour also contains baking powder. BTW, my cupcake risen too much in the oven and overflowed. They were 80% filled.
Instead of using 3 large egg, I use the normal egg I have which is roughly ~48g each. I top up the rest of the weight with Sheridan vanilla cream liqueur. With the vanilla cream liqueur, I skipped the vanilla extract. If your egg not the large variant, I am sure you can just top the just of the weight with milk.
In this all-in-1 method, it is important to ensure the butter is soft enough to blend in quickly with all the other ingredients. I took it out of the fridge for 2 hours.
When the cupcake is cooled, I filled the centre with raspberries jam using tip 230 - a sweet treat for my little Sheen!

As for the buttercream, I used the same tried-and-tested version which is lighter on my taste bud and waistline :-)

I tried to make them colourful frosting like what Rosie & Maria had... but I realised that it means quite some wastage... which is not ecologically friendly... so in the end I am neither colourful nor monochrome - not a good thing agh.

The results: Thanks for the trusty recipe, the cake is delightfully light! The vanilla and butter comes across very strongly... the way I like! The best part is that it only takes 15min (by hand) to mix them all up and bake!

This is Sheen's breakfast!