A couple of weekends ago I made almost 150 cupcakes for the village fete. It was all part of something that I was working on with Halifax, which I will elaborate more on another time, but you can find out more about the Halifax Pledge and how you can help your community here.
Since then I have caught the cupcake making bug again and last week I whipped up a batch of vanilla cupcakes to take with me to a picnic in the forest, where myself and friends watched Jessie J. I can't say that Jessie J is particularly my cup of tea but it was a great night out with friends and the cupcakes went down a storm, along with our picnic of cheese, crackers and strawberries.
I used the Madagascan Vanilla Grinder that came in the June Desgustabox, which is a small grinder of dried Madagascan vanilla pods that can be finely or coarsely ground and used in baking or to top hot drinks. I love this as a simple way to add real vanilla to cakes and icing without the hassle of vanilla pods. It may seem quite pricey at £4.99 for such a small post, but I can see it lasting a long while.
Vanilla Cupcakes - makes approx 18
225g Butter, softened
225g Caster Sugar
4 Eggs
Few twists of Dr Oetker Vanilla Grinder
225g Self Raising flour, sifted
For the Icing
150g Butter, softened
300g Icing sugar, sifted
Few twists of Dr Oetker Vanilla Grinder
- Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time
- Add a few twists of the vanilla grinder
- Fold in the flour
- Spoon into cupcake cases in a muffin pan, approx 2/3 full
- Bake in a preheated 180C oven for approx 18 minutes
- Allow to cool on a wire rack whilst making the icing
- Beat together the butter and half of the icing sugar until light and creamy
- Add the rest of icing sugar and a few twists of the vanilla grinder
- Beat well until smooth and creamy - if it's a little stiff, add a teaspoon or two of room temperature water - you could add room temperature milk but come on, who has room temperature milk?
- Pipe icing onto the cakes and top with decorations of your choice
This month the contents were as follows :
- Estrella Damm Spanish lager (alc 4.6%)
- Urban Fruit snack pack
- Dr Oetker Madagascan Vanilla grinder
- Bear Alpha Bites alphabet cereal
- Veetee Microwaveable rice
- Cawston Press sparkling rhubarb drink
- Lambrini Strawberry (alc 5%)
- Be Fast Breakfast on the go x 2
- Elizabeth Shaw Amaretto flutes
totalling over £22
I have a discount code which will entitle readers to a £3.00 discount off their box when registering - regular price £12.99 including p&p.
code : 2N4MJ