Vanilla cup cakes with buttercream

This recipe comes from Rachel Allan 'Bake" cookbook. You have to believe me they not only look good but they are very tasty too :)

 

Ingredients for 12 cup cakes:

• 125g butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 150g flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Heat up the oven to 200C. Line 12 hole tin with paper cases.

In electric mixer cream the butter until soft. Add the sugar and vanilla extract, blend together until soft and fluffy. Then add the eggs one at a time blending continuously. At the end add flour and baking powder.  Spoon into paper cases. Bake 8-12 min until golden and spongy. Cool them down on a wire rack.

Ingredients for buttercream:

• 150 ml milk
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 175g soft butter
• 1tsp vanilla extract

Place the milk and sugar into sauce pan. Heat it up until the sugar dissolve. Stir all the time. Bring it to a gentle boil. In separate bowl whisk the yolks. While whisking pour small amount of milk onto the yolks. Then return the mixture to the sauce pan. Heat it up again stirring all the time. The mixture should get thicker, it should coat back of the spoon you stir with. It can last up to 10 min. You should avoid  the mixture to get too hot or it will scramble (if it does immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour it through sieve). Let the mixture cool down to room temperature. You can place sauce pan in bigger container filled with cold water, as this will speed up cooling down process. In a mean time in electric mixer cream the butter until soft and light. Gradually add the almost cooled  custard to the butter, whisking all the time, until it is combined. Add the vanilla extract.

Then spoon or pipe buttercream on top of each cup cake.

I piped the cream on top of 6 cup cakes. The other six I decorated differently, I cut off the cup cake hill,  then piped cream on the remaining cup cake and then placed the half into cream as if they were butterfly wings.