Cupcakes For Hungry Birds

Seeing as though it was National Cupcake Week I set about baking a few for a little birthday party we had for a Junior Bird earlier this week. I used my favourite book, Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery, for the vanilla cupcake and buttercream icing recipe. I'm always amazed at how different the recipes for a basic cupcake can vary but this one always works out fine for me and uses both self raising and plain flour.

I always have more luck with cupcakes as opposed to a full cake in a tin which seems to end up too dry or still gooey in the middle. The Great British Bake Off I am not!

I decided on a blue buttercream and a sprinkle of magic dust.

I find getting a blue buttercream difficult as it ends up looking a bit green. I used Sugarflair Colours paste concentrate in Baby Blue but it still looked turquoise. I asked at my local cake decorators about this and they said it's the yellow butter making it look green and you need to mix for ages - they leave it in a fancy KitchenAid. Alas I do not have one and not the time to hand mix for ages.

I iced using a palette knife as it feels like a lot of faffing to pipe. Lazy! A few Jazzy's and my lovely Rainbow Dust edible glitter in Glacier Violet and Jewel Bronze Sand. Wonderful stuff for making even lousy icing look better. 

Baking is all in the fun of having a go. Nobody in my household cares how the icing is too splodgy or for the odd bit of crunchy cake as long as they taste good. Needless to say, they have all been eaten.