Momiji Vanilla Cupcakes

Sundays are Momiji bake days, its an unofficial law, and as i'd just received the cutest Momiji cupcake set i thought i may aswell honour the occassion with some cupcakes! You all need to check out the kit on the Momiji site, the cupcake cases are so sweet that i was almost reluctant to use them!

Armed with possibly the most retro equipment (I was using my Mum's Kitchen) i set about making vanilla sponge cupcakes with purple vanilla buttercream icing. This should have been a simple task, however a different oven and 30 year-old equipment resulted in me having to start over after the first batch ended in disaster!

I yet again learned the important lesson that Mother is always right, she had warned me that 190c was too hot in her swanky fan oven, yet i ploughed on regardless resulting in 'burned on the outside, gooey on the inside' cupcakes.

As this obviously wasn't the intended result, i set about making another batch, this time with Mother fussing over the temperature and timings. It was second time lucky and so Mum had an air of smugness for the rest of the evening!

This Momiji Vanilla Cupcake recipe makes 12 standard sized cupcakes...


Base
125g soft butter
125g vanilla caster sugar
2 medium eggs
125g self-raising flour
2 tbsp milk

Icing
175g softened butter
350g icing sugar
3 tbsp boiling water
Vanilla extract
Aubergine food colouring
White chocolate buttons


Preheat the oven to 190c OR if you also have a swanky fan oven, 160c!

Mix the vanilla sugar in a large mixing bowl along with the butter. Then crack open the eggs and seperate the whites and yolk, whisking the whites until stiff. Add the self-raising flour, egg yolk and milk into the bowl and whisk until creamy. Then fold the stiffened whites into the mixture - this will make a lovely light sponge.

Evenly place the mixture into the cupcake tin and bake for 12-15 minutes until the sponge is firm and golden. (swanky fan - 20 mins approx)Remove the cupcakes and leave to cool on a rack.

Now onto my second important lesson of the day, salted butter gives a much better flavour than the unsalted variety! I feel its important to try out different ingredients and after experimenting with unsalted butter this time around there definately felt as though something was missing!!

So, onto the buttercream icing... Beat the butter in a mixing bowl to soften and add the icing sugar, boiling water and vanilla extract into a bowl. Mix until smooth and add the aubergine food colouring and mix until desired colouring is achieved. Add the white chocolate buttons before the icing sets.