The Reason I Don't Bake....

Because I'm rubbish at it! I have a few things I'm not bad at - scones, tea breads that type of thing but the pretty, pretty stuff - well that's a whole other story. As you know cupcakes are very trendy at the minute and I love cute cupcake images on cards - so as I'm on holiday this week I thought I'd have a go at the real thing. I used the following recipe:

Ingredients

• 125g butter, softened
• 125g caster sugar
• 1/2 large lemon, finely grated zest only
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 150g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

For the lemon butter icing

• 75g butter, softened
• 175g icing sugar, sifted
• 1/2 large lemon, finely grated zest only
• 1-2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• jelly orange and lemon slices (optional)


1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Line a 12-hole fairy cake tin with paper cases.

2. Cream the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add the sugar and grated lemon zest and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Gradually add the beaten eggs, then sift in the flour and baking powder and fold into the mixture. Alternatively, whiz all the ingredients together in an electric food mixer.

3. Divide the mixture between the paper cases and bake in the preheated oven for 7–10 minutes, until risen and golden. When cooked, the centre of each cake should be slightly springy to the touch. Remove the cakes from the tin and put on a wire rack to cool before you ice them.

4. For the lemon butter icing, cream the butter in a bowl with a wooden spoon or hand-held electric beater until very soft. Gradually add the icing sugar and beat into the butter, along with the lemon zest and enough lemon juice to soften the icing to a spreadable consistency.

5. When the cupcakes are cool, spread a generous heaped teaspoon of lemon butter icing over the top of each one (I also added some orange essence and food colouring to the icing). Decorate with the jelly embellishments (if using).

Adapted from Rachel Allen, Bake (Collins)

I followed the recipe, put the cupcake mixture into silicon moulds (they are brilliant) and put them in the oven. I set the timer for 7 minutes and had a look - not much happening, a further three and they are still really pale and haven't risen, a few more minutes still nothing and then I realise there must be something wrong with the oven - it is heating but obviously not enough. Emergency rescue whang them into the microwave and nuke them. Phew....they've risen but are still a bit 'peely wally' but it'll be OK once I cover them in icing.

So here they are.



They do taste good but I think I'll give the sweet stuff a miss and stick to the savoury in future. Oops I've just noticed I've got yellow food dye on my fingers as well - it looks as if I smoke 60 fags a day - not a good look!

Onto todays card. I've coloured a dahlia image I got from the internet with my new Pale Blue Copic (B32), I've stamped the leaves with a My Mind's Eye stamp, the green paper is from K&Co, the tartan is a scrap from a previous card and I've hand-stitched a zig-zag to join the two together and the sentiment is computer generated.



I'm entering it into the following challenges:

Little Red Wagon - Inspiration Photo
Crafty Calendar - Flower Power

Thanks for looking!