Welcome to The Little
Yellow Book!
The first recipe on
The Little Yellow Book has to be vanilla cupcakes – it was the first cupcake that
I ever made and is still a firm favourite today!
Ingredients (makes 12 cupcakes)
For the cupcakes
100g butter
100g caster sugar
100g self-raising flour
2 free range eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
For the buttercream
150g butter
350g icing sugar
2tbsp milk
½ tsp vanilla extract
Method
For the cupcakes
- Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a cupcake tray with 12 cupcake cases.
- Cream together your butter and sugar until there are no lumps. You can use an electric mixer or, like me, just a mixing bowl and wooden spoon.
- Sift half of the flour and add one egg and mix until combined. Repeat with the remaining flour and the second egg.
- Splash in your vanilla extract and mix until it is all combined and smells like vanilla! If the mixture is a bit stiff you can always loosen it with a bit of milk.
- Spoon your mixture into your cupcake cases - I spooned in about 2 and a half teaspoons of cake mixture into each case.
- Put your cupcakes in the oven for 15 minutes or until the cupcakes are golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.
- Leave to cool and make your vanilla buttercream.
Admittedly, I
used to just guess measurements for my buttercream and hope for the best... But thankfully I recently discovered Cupcake Jemma on Jamie Oliver’s ‘Food Tube’ and she makes the best buttercream, it looks amazing - and I can vouch
that it tastes incredible too. Her method requires a mixer, but a trusty
wooden spoon will work just fine.
For the buttercream
- To make your vanilla buttercream you need to start by beating your butter in a bowl until it becomes pale and smooth.
- In a separate bowl add the vanilla extract to the milk and mix together.
- Sift half of your icing sugar into the butter bowl and mix together, adding half of the vanilla milk as you go along.
- Add the remaining icing sugar and vanilla milk and mix until it has combined and is a nice pale white colour.
- Using a teaspoon (or piping bag if you're feeling fancy), swirl your vanilla buttercream onto each cupcake - a heaped teaspoon of buttercream should be the perfect amount.
Now you’re free to
decorate your cupcakes! To celebrate the start of my blog I ordered some
personalised cake toppers from Label Amour to decorate my cakes, but you can
use whatever you like: sprinkles, chocolate shavings, sugar flowers – anything! Adding a
tiny amount of food colouring into the buttercream will also liven up any
vanilla cupcake.
I hope you enjoy these
vanilla cupcakes as much as I do – a simple recipe like this proves that baking
does not have to be difficult, and even the easiest of recipes can look and
taste really impressive!
