cupcakes for the fair

Last week one of the girls at work asked if I would make some cupcakes for her son’s school fair. I was very flattered of course and went home on Friday night to make cupcakes. I decided to do half girly and half for boys. I also made half vanilla, using the Crabapple bakery vanilla cupcake recipe that I have made before, and the other half, chocolate. Instead of using my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe, I tried out the Crabapple bakery recipe and it was great!! I need to use this book more often. The cake wasn’t too rich (which I thought was a good thing given my target market of kids!!!) and had a lovely light texture. Kids would love them, as would adults.









I decorated the boys’ cakes with blue icing and the girl’s with pink (of course!!). I used little blue wrappers for the boys and Disney princess wrappers for the girls, then decorated them with decorations that I made with coloured fondant (my new favourite way for decorating) – hearts and flowers for the girls and stars for the boys. I cant think of anything more imaginative to decorate boys’ cakes – any suggestions?

I was really pleased with how the cakes looked and apparently they sold like hot cakes!!!

Crabapple Bakery Chocolate cupcakes (I halved this recipe and got 30 cupcakes)

3 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp instant coffee
1 c hot water
1 c cocoa
1 c cold water
200g butter
2 ½ c castor sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla

· Combine coffee and hot water, then add cocoa and cold water to make a thick liquid
· Cream butter & sugar, add eggs one at a time and then vanilla
· Sift together dry ingredients and fold into butter mix alternately with cocoa mixture
Spoon into cupcake cases and bake at 180c for about 18 minutes