Very Easy Valentine’s Cupcakes

Everyone knows that the way to a man’s anyone’s(!) heart is through their stomach right?

So what better time than Valentine’s Day to show your appreciation for the ones you love through food.

However what with picking the perfect dress, scrabbling for last minute restaurant reservations and generally stressing about romance there’s not always time to spend forever in the kitchen.

That’s where these VERY easy cup cakes come in handy…they  take about 30-45 mins and literally couldn’t be more simple! With equal measures of flour, sugar and butter you can remember them even when your mind is on other things, and decoration is totally up to you… let your personality shine through 🙂

Enjoy! 

Ingredients – Cupcakes (makes 16)

120g Self Raising Flour

120g Caster Sugar

120g Unsalted butter (room temperature)

2 tbsp Milk

1 tbsp Vanilla Essence

Ingredients – Icing

250g Icing Sugar

30g Unsalted Butter

2 tbsp Milk

Pink/Red Food Colouring

Method

Cube the softened butter in a mixing bowl and add the caster sugar

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric whisk (unless you have really strong forearms and want to use a normal whisk!). This should take about 5 minutes, but it’s a really important stage, if the butter and sugar are creamed properly then your cake is much more likely to rise properly – or so I’ve found.

Weigh out your flour and add one large table spoon to the creamed butter/sugar mix. This will stop the mixture curdling when you add the eggs.

Add the eggs and vanilla essence and mix gently, don’t over mix as this will cause the mixture to curdle even if you’ve added the flour. (P.S it looks a bit gross…)

Sift in the flour and fold in gently. It’s best to use a metal spoon for this as you’ll knock less air out of the mix, but this isn’t the be all and end all of the recipe!

Add milk until the mixture is of dropping consistency and spoon into whatever you’re cooking them in. This could be pretty cupcake cases or just a silicone mould as I’ve used.

Bake on 180ºC for 15 minutes or until the cupcakes are golden brown and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool…

Once they’ve cooled, mix the icing sugar butter and milk together until you have a firm but mouldable icing mix.

 Add the food colouring and mix until this is thoroughly incorporated. Spoon the icing into an icing bag and ice in whichever way you like (or just spread it on the top it’s really up to you!)

Then, all you’ve got left to do is give them to that special someone and watch their heart melt as their tastebuds tingle!

Cliona xoxo