The Perfect Fairy Cakes Recipes

FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Line 2 x 12 hole bun tins or mini muffin tins with paper cake cases. Put all the fairy cake ingredients into a large bowl and whisk together with electric hand beaters until smooth. If you don't have these you can use a wooden spoon or balloon whisk (see tip).
• Dollop the mixture into the prepared cases until it's all used up. Bake for 10-12 mins or until golden and springy. To be sure they're cooked through, poke a cocktail stick into the centre of one of the cakes in a middle row - if it comes out cleanly, it's cooked. Leave to cool in the tin for 5-10mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
• Mix the icing sugar with enough water to make it the consistency of thick cream. Colour some or all of the icing with a few drops of your chosen food colouring(s) then drizzle over the top of the cooled fairy cakes. Sprinkle with your chosen toppings while the icing is still wet. Leave to set firm before serving. Will keep for 2 days in an airtight container.

EASY FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line 2 x 12-hole fairy cake tins with paper cases.
• Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, and stir in the vanilla extract.
• Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon. Add a little milk until the mixture is a soft dropping consistency and spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.
• Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
• For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a large mixing bowl and stir in enough water to create a smooth mixture. Stir in the food colouring.
• To ice the fairy cakes, drizzle the icing over the cakes, sprinkle with decorations and set aside until the icing hardens.

ICED FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• Ask a grown-up helper to turn the oven on to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Put a paper case in hole of a 12-hole bun tin.
• Put the sugar and butter (it must be soft or you won't be able to mix it properly) in a bowl and mix it together. Sift in the flour.
• Break the eggs into a separate bowl (spoon out any bits of shell that fall in) and add them to the bowl with the vanilla. Mix everything together.
• Divide between the cases using a spoon, scraping it off with a knife. Ask a grown-up helper to put the tray in the oven for 20 minutes.
• Mix the butter and icing sugar to make a creamy icing. Add colouring, if you like. Push an icing nozzle into an icing bag, then scoop in the icing.
• Let the cakes cool completely in the tray. Pipe icing onto each cake and decorate with marshmallows or sprinkles, or whatever you like.

THE PERFECT FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• The basic formula of fairy cake is straightforward - roughly equal amounts of butter, sugar and flour, plus egg, and sometimes milk or water, to loosen the mixture. But there are significant variations between cookbooks.
• INGREDIENTS DECODED:
• Baking powder + self-raising flour gives the cakes a few extra millimetres of height & also a lighter texture.
• Eggs get the mixture to the desired 'dropping consistency' before baking (it will drop slowly off the spoon, rather than running off easily, or sticking completely). Use 2 eggs if you prefer a rich, denser cake.
• If you wish a more fluffy sponge, add extra milk.
• If you like crunchy cakes, add ground almonds to mixture.
• DIRECTIONS:
• Line a fairy cake or muffin tin with cases, and heat the oven to 180C/356F/Gas mark 4.
• Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (turn the food mixer up to full power for about 5 minutes) – if you do this by hand you'll need a very strong arm. A nice light sponge needs as much air in it as possible. I have also included a photo of what properly creamed butter and sugar should look like.
• While continuing to mix, drizzle the egg in gradually, adding a tablespoon of flour if the mixture looks like it's about to curdle.
• Combine the flour, almonds (optional) and baking powder, then gently fold into the mixture. Add just enough milk to bring the batter to a dropping consistency.
• Divide the mixture between the cases: if you prefer flat-topped cakes, then just cover the bottom of the cases, if not, you can half-fill them.
• Bake for 20 minutes, and then turn out on to a rack to cool.
• Mix the icing sugar with enough boiling water to make a thick paste, then smooth over the cooled cakes, and add decorations before it sets. Eat quickly – fairy cakes don't keep!

SPICED FARMHOUSE FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lay out about 18 cupcake (muffin) papers on a baking sheet or place them in a muffin pan.
• In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and margarine until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time using an electric mixer, or the whole thing may be mixed in a blender. Add cinnamon and ginger to the batter and mix well. Stir in the flour until well blended. Spoon a generous tablespoon of the batter into each paper, and level it out.
• Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. Dust with confectioners' sugar and cardamom when cooled.

FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Line a 12 cup muffin tin with baking cups.
• Put all the ingredients except for the milk into a food processor and blend until smooth. Pulse while adding the milk down the funnel to make for a soft consistency.
• It doesn't seem like enough, but you can get enough into each baking cup, just scrape it all out and try to fill each one equally.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes or until they are golden on top.
• Cool on a wire rack, but remove from the tin as soon as possible.
• Before you decorate, slice off any mounded tops so you have a flat surface to decorate. Icing: Mix the sugar, egg white and lemon juice in a small bowl until smooth and creamy, it should have the consistency of heavy cream I always break the batch into smaller batches so I can have different colors When my girlfriend made these for my shower, she frosted them with a bright pink icing, sprinkled them with iridescent edible glitter and topped it with an edible (gum paste) rosebud.
• Very very cute!
• In the cookbook they show them topped with rosebuds and little sugared daisies and fresh berries and they even made a spiderweb with black and white icing.
• Use your imagination, the flat tops give lots of room to be creative!

INCREDIBLY LIGHT AND FLUFFY FAIRY CAKES

Steps:

• First, preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a fairy cake tin with cake cases.
• Take your softened fat and place it in a bowl. Then proceed to beat it as if you were creaming it(DO NOT ADD IN SUGAR AT THIS STAGE).
• Next, add in the sugar (make sure it has been sieved to achieve most air) and cream the two ingredients together.
• Using a separate bowl (this will have to be quite large), beat the egg. To make your cakes extra fluffy keep beating it even if you think it is done. The perfect outcome would be to end up with a "blob" of "froth" but that is not an easy feat. Then, spoon around a quarter of the egg to the beaten fat and beat it in thoroughly. To achieve best results make a well for the egg and when first starting to beat it in, mix the mixtures together like you would cement. After that, pour the mix into the rest of the egg and again, beat thoroughly. if you are adding an extract to this recipe then now is the time to do it, beating into the mix.
• Fold in the flour (after it has been sieved). if you are unsure as to how to do this then draw figures of eight around the bowl, coming up at the top and bottom.
• As with he eggs, beat the milk but this time continue unti it is a "blob" of "froth". Then, fold this into the mixture. the cake mix should be a good consistency, softly dropping off the spoon. Finally, spoon into the cake cases
• Bake for around 10 minutes or until golden brown and when inserted, a skewer comes out clean. Then leave to cool.