Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Cupcakes Galore!













Hi fellow foodies and bloggers! I’m back from my 3-week holiday to Singapore and Chiang Mai and shall put up a post on that as soon as I have all the photos organized. Thank you all for all the sweet well wishes and kind words you left on my last post. While I was away, Nora B. of Life’s Smorgasbord awarded me the ‘Thoughtful Blogger’ Award. Thank you Nora, I’m honoured. I’m not very familiar with how this award goes but I think I’m supposed to pass the award on to 5 other bloggers. These bloggers are not necessarily food bloggers, though..

Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen
Mandy of Fresh from the Oven
Joy of The Goddess in You
Daniel of Messy Pastor
Belinda of Bel’s Fish Bowl

The Cupcakes on today’s post are the ones I made for Paige’s Birthday. You probably can’t tell by looking at them, but they are the mini sized ones so you don’t feel soooooo bad if you have more than one. To get a bigger and clearer view of them, just click on the photos. The recipe is pretty simple and the décor, well.. it’s really up to you what you want to top it with. I used jelly lollies, some sugar paste flowers I piped and lots and lots of different colored hundreds and thousands. So, which is your favourite?

PAIGE’S (MINI) ORANGE CUPCAKES
Makes 50

250g salted butter, softened
200g caster sugar
1 tbsp finely grated orange zest
4 eggs, lightly beaten
250g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp orange juice


Orange butter Icing

100g salted butter, softened
2 cups Icing sugar
Enough orange juice to achieve a spreadable consistency
Food colors of your choice
Lollies and hundreds and thousands

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line your mini cupcake trays with mini paper cups. Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the orange zest, then gradually add the egg, beating thoroughly after each addition. Fold in the sifted flour and baking powder as well as the orange juice. Stir until just combined and almost smooth. Spoon the mixture into the paper cups ¾ full and bake for 10 minutes or until the little cakes look golden. Remove the trays from the oven and wait 10 minutes before transferring the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, simply beat the softened butter and the icing sugar until combined, and then gradually add the orange juice until you get the right consistency. Decorate the cupcakes as you please!