Help re Cupcakes for Kids Party

marley123

So am trying to summon up the courage to do Cup Cakes for my Little girls birthday party on Sunday.

Does anyone have an easy peasy recipe? Plus is it best to use a piping bag for doing the icing on top?

Sigma Force

A piping bag will make icing easier but it depends on the type/flavour of icing eg vanilla looks nice piped, some chocolate icings look nice just slapped on with a pallet knife.

When it comes to kids parties I tend to stick with a vanilla with chocolate chips.

This makes about 12-16 regular sized cupcakes/well fairy cakes/buns it's all the same thing really.

You can make these the day before if you use real butter and then making the icing on the day to pipe to save time, they'll still taste great).

100g Butter
100g Caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
100g self raising flour
50g plain/dark chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Put bun cases in bun tin, preheat oven to 190C (180C if your oven is fast).

Cream butter and sugar together until pale (stand mixer is best but you can do this by hand either if so make sure butter is soft at room temp.)

Gradually beat in the eggs and vanilla extract, a little at a time. Fold in the flour. Once everything is combined (don't over beat too much) add the 50g of dark choc chips.

Bake for about 15 -20 mins until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool, don't leave them in the hot tin.

Instead of choc chips you could use 50g of milk or white choc chips, or fudge pieces, or sultanas. But dark choc chips are very popular.

The great thing about choc chip cupcakes is you can add pretty much any frosting flavour you like.

I use nutella buttercream (got recipe from one of the boardsies here) a LOT, very popular as well and very easy to make. This will make more than enough for 12 - 16 buns.

250g icing sugar, sifted
80g unsalted butter @ room temp
25ml whole milk
80g nutella

Beat the icing sugar and butter together until well mixed.
Slowly pour in the milk and when it is incorporated beat until the frosting is light and fluffy (about 5 mins)
Stir in the nutella until evenly mixed.

The frosting comes out brown of course so not the girliest colour but you could still top them off with her favourite character decorations and even use pink cup cake cases.

Or you could make plain butter cream and add a tiny bit of red food colouring to make them pink, or colour it whatever her fave colour is.

Buttercream is the simplest and quickest thing to do esp. when stuck for time.

Tesco/Dunnes all do the Barbie sprinkles as well.

Here's a basic butter cream recipe..

125 unsalted butter or salted if preferred at room temp.
225g icing sugar sieved
15-30ml milk
Few drops of vanilla extract

Cream butter till soft, beat in icing sugar and add vanilla and milk, add only 15ml of milk to start then if you need more you can add is slowly.

If you don't want vanilla, you could use lemon or orange juice & some rind.

If you want an icecreamy taste to the cupcakes then I'd go all out vanilla.
Making the cupcakes as normal with the vanilla extract then when making the butter cream use less milk and more vanilla extract plus vanilla bean from a vanilla pod.

Happy baking!

marley123

Thank you so much for this recipe - doing a test run tomoro night. Nutella Buttercream icing sounds fab!

Sigma Force wrote: »

A piping bag will make icing easier but it depends on the type/flavour of icing eg vanilla looks nice piped, some chocolate icings look nice just slapped on with a pallet knife.

When it comes to kids parties I tend to stick with a vanilla with chocolate chips.

This makes about 12-16 regular sized cupcakes/well fairy cakes/buns it's all the same thing really.

You can make these the day before if you use real butter and then making the icing on the day to pipe to save time, they'll still taste great).

100g Butter
100g Caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
100g self raising flour
50g plain/dark chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Put bun cases in bun tin, preheat oven to 190C (180C if your oven is fast).

Cream butter and sugar together until pale (stand mixer is best but you can do this by hand either if so make sure butter is soft at room temp.)

Gradually beat in the eggs and vanilla extract, a little at a time. Fold in the flour. Once everything is combined (don't over beat too much) add the 50g of dark choc chips.

Bake for about 15 -20 mins until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool, don't leave them in the hot tin.

Instead of choc chips you could use 50g of milk or white choc chips, or fudge pieces, or sultanas. But dark choc chips are very popular.

The great thing about choc chip cupcakes is you can add pretty much any frosting flavour you like.

I use nutella buttercream (got recipe from one of the boardsies here) a LOT, very popular as well and very easy to make. This will make more than enough for 12 - 16 buns.

250g icing sugar, sifted
80g unsalted butter @ room temp
25ml whole milk
80g nutella

Beat the icing sugar and butter together until well mixed.
Slowly pour in the milk and when it is incorporated beat until the frosting is light and fluffy (about 5 mins)
Stir in the nutella until evenly mixed.

The frosting comes out brown of course so not the girliest colour but you could still top them off with her favourite character decorations and even use pink cup cake cases.

Or you could make plain butter cream and add a tiny bit of red food colouring to make them pink, or colour it whatever her fave colour is.

Buttercream is the simplest and quickest thing to do esp. when stuck for time.

Tesco/Dunnes all do the Barbie sprinkles as well.

Here's a basic butter cream recipe..

125 unsalted butter or salted if preferred at room temp.
225g icing sugar sieved
15-30ml milk
Few drops of vanilla extract

Cream butter till soft, beat in icing sugar and add vanilla and milk, add only 15ml of milk to start then if you need more you can add is slowly.

If you don't want vanilla, you could use lemon or orange juice & some rind.

If you want an icecreamy taste to the cupcakes then I'd go all out vanilla.
Making the cupcakes as normal with the vanilla extract then when making the butter cream use less milk and more vanilla extract plus vanilla bean from a vanilla pod.

Happy baking!

huskerdu

My advice is not to get too stressed about the icing and enjoy it.

If you are not experienced in icing, it will look messy compared to the pictures you see in recipe books. Dont worry about it. Once the icing is colourful and has smarties or glittery bits on it, the kids will think they are brilliant.

Half of the buns will be walked on or handed back to you anyway.

Sigma Force

lol true throw sprinkles on anything and kids will eat it. Mind you I would be terrible upset if my cupcakes weren't eaten lol Thankfully they're usually gone like a shot. Although small kids don't have huge appetites (the ones I make for are bigger so they're savages) maybe mini cupcakes might work better. You can get all sized of bun cases just shorten the cooking time for smaller ones.

tootired

If you're worried about icing the cupcakes, get the kids to decorate their own cupcakes - lots of fun and no stress for you.