Fairy cakes

This easy peasy recipe is perfect for baking with children.

Ingredients

110g/4oz butter or margarine, softened at room temperature

110g/4oz caster sugar

2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

110g/4oz self-raising flour

1-2 tbsp milk

For the icing

300g/10½oz icing sugar

2-3 tbsp water

2-3 drops food colouring

hundreds and thousands, or other cake decorations

Preparation method

1.Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line 2 x 12-hole fairy cake tins with paper cases.

2.Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, and stir in the vanilla extract.
Technique: Creaming butter by hand 


3.Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon. Add a little milk until the mixture is a soft dropping consistency and spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.
Technique: Folding 


4.Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

5.For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir in enough water to create a smooth mixture. Stir in the food colouring.

6.To ice the fairy cakes, drizzle the icing over the cakes, sprinkle with decorations and set aside until the icing hardens.

Recipe from BBC Good Food