ROYAL WEDDING CUPCAKES

As it’s the Royal Wedding tomorrow, and you most certainly cannot avoid the celebrations, I thought I’d get into the patriotic swing of things in the kitchen with some ‘Royal Wedding’ Cupcakes.

I found some tremendously tacky and marvelously majestic rice paper decorations online and they arrived yesterday – just in time! So today I set about making a batch of vanilla cupcakes topped with a swirl of butter icing, a perfect base for the fabulous decorations adorned with the faces of Wills and Kate.

I also crafted some sweet little crowns out of royal (aptly named) fondant icing. I’d found this shimmery edible gold powder for decorating cakes in my local kitchen shop and thought it fit for just such a job. So after some blitzing, whipping, piping and prettifying I have 24 perfectly patriotic and really rather royal cakes ready for tomorrow.

Vanilla cupcakes:

200g self-raising flour

200g sugar

200g butter

4 duck eggs

1tsp vanilla extract

Butter Icing:

430g icing sugar (sifted)

200g butter

Crown Decorations:

Block of Royal Fondant icing

Edible gold shimmer powder

Preheat the oven to 180C.

You can make these very quickly and easily in the food processor or just as well by hand.

First mix the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy, it really is worth taking time to do this as it results in a light and fluffy cake.

Next crack in the 4 eggs one at a time, I use duck eggs for cakes as they make a delicious, golden sponge. Whilst combining the eggs, add 1-2 tablespoons of the flour to prevent curdling.

Next sift in the flour and combine everything together.

Spoon the mixture equally into 24 paper cupcake cases and put into the oven for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

For the butter icing it is definitely easier to use either a hand whisk or the food processor as otherwise the kitchen gets engulfed by a fog of icing sugar.

Mix the icing sugar and butter together until smooth.

I like to pipe my icing onto the cakes but you can just as successfully spread it on with a knife.Wait until the cakes are cool before icing.

For the golden crowns, roll out a block of royal fondant icing and cut into small crown shapes (you can also buy crown-shaped biscuit cutters).

Press the crowns into the icing on top of each cake and sprinkle over edible gold powder (available from cooking shops and Waitrose).

If you’re feeling even more adventurous and in the regal spirit why not support William and Kate’s big day with this Union Jack Battenberg cake from the BBC Food website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/union_jack_battenburg_15063. Pure genius.

Georgina Davies x