Childminding = Cupcakes.

For the next few weeks I am childminding a lovely 8 year old girl. However she is very energetic so I have to come up with lots of things to "do" in order to keep her entertained!

Something simple and easy to do with children is baking, so we decided to make little cupcakes. Unfortunately we couldn't find a whisk... which meant all the mixing had to be done by hand. Despite an aching arm, they turned out very well and so I thought I'd share some photos and the recipe with you. 

Ingredients

200g Butter

200g Sugar

200g Flour

3 Eggs

Chocolate Chips

(plus Butter, Icing Sugar & Food Colouring for the butter icing)

Recipe

- Preheat oven at 180degrees

- Soften the butter and whisk until light and fluffy with the sugar

- Fold in the flour and the eggs until you have a smooth and creamy mixture

- Add the chocolate chips (this part is optional but we wanted as much chocolate as possible)

- Pour the mixture into cupcake cases... there was the perfect amount for 12 cupcakes

- Place into the oven and bake for 20 minutes

Obviously our cupcakes were decorated by an 8 year old, so purple icing was a must, however if you wish to make more tasteful cupcakes then maybe leave out the food dye and chocolate toppings from the next part of the recipe!

Icing Recipe

- I actually normally just estimate measurements with icing and mix together butter and icing sugar until it looks creamy and smooth and tastes right, so I cant give precise measures for this! I did find that adding a splash of water helped my icing become smoother and stick together

- Add food colouring of any colour (we chose purple) and mix until the icing is fully dyed your chosen colour

- After the cakes have cooled, ice your cakes using a piping bag or spoons... we used spoons as it is a whole lot easier and we wanted to eat them as soon as possible!

- Add your toppings... we stuck Magic Stars and Smarties into the icing before it set

We actually left a couple of cakes without icing and for those we just stuck the chocolate toppings into the cakes themselves!

We didn't wait long before tucking in and they really were extremely good! I would recommend eating them fresh as I find cupcakes often taste best the day you make them. 

I would love to know what your favourite cupcake recipe is and also any ideas of fun things to make or do with an 8 year old girl!

xo