Foodie Friday: Jubilee Cupcakes

Whoaaaa it's been ages since I did a Foodie Friday post. Oops! Today is a special one to celebrate the Queen's upcoming Jubilee. A lot of people are having street parties, so if you're stuck for ideas of what to bring, I thought I'd provide a relatively quick and easy - but totally delicious - suggestion: Jubilee cupcakes!

I found this recipe somewhere on the Internet a couple of years ago but can't remember where. I've tried lots of different recipes and this is definitely my favourite, it makes the cakes so light and fluffy. It makes about 20 cupcakes, depending on the size of the cases you use. Speaking of cake cases, I found some Union Jack and crown cases in Lakeland recently which I highly recommend to make your cakes look even more Jubilicious!

Ingredients:

For the sponge
80g unsalted butter, softened
280g caster sugar
240g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
240ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs

For the icing
250g icing sugar
80g unsalted butter
25ml milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Red, white and blue sprinkles

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F and line two cupcake tins with cupcakes.
2. Whisk together the butter and sugar until perfectly combined - it should look a bit like breadcrumbs. Add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well.
3. Put the milk, eggs and vanilla extract in a jug and mix together by hand. With your whisk on a low speed, add three quarters of this to the dry ingredients and combine thoroughly, then add the rest of the mixture and whisk on a medium setting until smooth. It will be quite runny, more like a batter than your usual cake mix, but this is what makes the cakes so fluffy!
4. Spoon the cake mixture into the cases so they're about two-thirds full. Bake for about 20 minutes in the oven - but keep a close eye on them! If the cakes feel springy when you touch them, then they're ready. Leave to cool.
5. In a clean bowl, whisk the icing sugar and butter together until they look sandy (just take my word for it). Add the milk and vanilla extract, and whisk until the icing is light and fluffy. I usually like to do this for at least a couple of minutes. At this point you can add food colouring - red or blue, perhaps? - if you want to, but I chose to leave mine white.
6. Using a knife (or a palette knife, if you have one), spread the icing on the top of the cakes. Finally, add your sprinkles or whatever else you want to use to decorate your cakes (I used red, white and blue sugar sprinkles from Lakeland). I also added little Jubilee flags to each one.
7. Put your feet up and eat one of your delicious cupcakes - for, ahem, quality control purposes, of course!