Quick, Easy and Cheap Birthday Cupcakes! Vanilla and Orange Cupcakes

I prefer cupcakes to cakes because there is none of the cutting and awkward transportation in a napkin. Cute cupcake decorations are simple and effective, and the design is not ruined once it has been cut! We made a vanilla sponge with orange buttercream icing, but the flavours and colours can

be changed to suit the occasion. I have added links throughout for inspiration, either I use the products and recommend them or I think the products are great!

*We used a couple of different recipes which will be linked, credit goes to them! But we changed bits and made it our own, so yes, not our recipe but our edits.*

Makes approximately 15 cupcakes!

Cupcake Recipe: taken from Delia Online and edited

175g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

175g caster sugar

175g soft (cake) butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

• Preheat the oven to 170c (fan)
• Line cupcake tins with cupcake cases (the cuter the better)

Sieve the flour and baking powder to remove lumps. Whisk all of the ingredients together until mixed and smooth. Put mixture in cupcake cases, fill a third of the cases to ensure the mixture does not rise over the cases and to leave room for icing! Cook cupcakes for 30 to 35 minutes. The newer and better the oven, the less time it will take to cook, ours took 30 minutes. To check they are cooked, get a skewer and slide into the cupcake, it should come out clean if cooked, if uncooked, raw mixture will be seen. Once out of the oven, leave to cool completely! Have a bath, eat dinner or go for a run! Make sure they are completely cold before you start the buttercream. Now would probably be a good time to take out your butter for it to soften before making the buttercream.

Buttercream Recipe: taken from BBC Good Food and edited

300g icing sugar

150g softened butter (salted or unsalted)

Approx. 1 tsp orange extract

Approx. 1 tsp orange food colouring

Milk

Candles

Cute decorations as required

Sieve the icing sugar into the mixing bowl to remove lumps. Cut up the butter into small chunks when adding to the icing sugar. Mix until smooth, and add orange extract and colouring slowly. Add to taste as all extracts and colouring's are different concentrations. If the icing is very firm, use milk to make it easier to pipe, add it slowly as to not make it too runny. If too much milk it added, use icing sugar to reverse it. Using a piping bag and a nozzle, slowly pipe the icing onto the cupcakes. Finally sprinkle the decorations on top, adding candles to the best to give to the birthday girl or boy!

Ours looked like this: