Butterfly Cupcakes

I absolutely love the smell of vanilla cupcakes baking in the oven. I've made a lot of cupcakes in my time and I still think the best recipe for a basic vanilla cupcake is equal portions of butter, sugar and flour. I got this recipe from 500 Cupcakes one of my favourite baking cookbooks. It's super easy and you can't go wrong. In fact it's very similar to Na's basic cupcake batter in her recent post Lemon Meringue Cupcakes. Just make sure the butter and eggs have come to room temperature before beating together.


Basic Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

• 225 g unsalted butter, softened
• 225 g caster sugar
• 225 g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Finely grated zest of one lemon (optional)

1. Preheat a fan forced oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Place 18 baking cases in a standard muffin tin or 36 baking cases in a mini-muffin tin.
3. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat together with an electric whisk until smooth and pale.
4. Spoon batter into cases and bake for about 15 - 20 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out cleanly.

There you have it, a simple yet delicious vanilla cupcake. You can top the cupcakes with anything really, try Na's buttercream recipe or else Mr Mi loves freshly whipped cream. I cut out the centre of the cupcake and sliced in two, filled the bottom portion with raspberry jam and piped on some freshly whipped cream. Then place the half circles on top of the cake at a slight angle and voila you have beautiful butterfly cupcakes. Enjoy! Mi xo