Floral Fairy Cakes

I have thus far edged away from sharing my ideas and recipes for the small sponge cake, contained in its own little case and popularly known as a cupcake as it smacks a little of desperately seeking to increase the hits I get! At the moment cupcakes are de regueur and I have thus far been told in the sunday supplements all about Kate Moss’ favourite cupcake seller, met people who are having cupcakes on gorgeous tiered stands instead of a wedding cake, read of how new and exciting they are and watched Alan Sugar setting a cupcake task on The Junior Apprentice… (The mind boggles)

Everyone appears to have overlooked the fact that we have always had cupcakes, we just didn’t realise! Under the guise of “Buns” and “Fairy Cakes”, cupcakes have been around for years on cake stands in every grandmother’s sitting room and present at every High Tea. We just didn’t appreciate their dainty appeal until the Americans began to sell their more vanilla-y, more heavily iced (frosted) versions for many-a-doller. Bringing them out of hiding and making them an elegant adult treat instead of a mini-cake for children.

I must admit though that I rail against the term “CupCake”, it doesn’t sound very nice to my ears and anyway, we already have a variety of English words for these little delights. My favourite is “Fairy Cake” as it not only describes their size it also puts me in mind of something light, delicate and beautiful. It always makes me think of the illustrations of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, who wrote beautiful fairy stories with stunning illustrations.

The additional bonus with Fairy Cakes is their joyous simplicity! The basic cake relies on equal quantities of all the ingredients; butter, sugar, eggs and self raising flour. I measure my ingredients against my eggs, putting two eggs on one side of the scales and measuring everything to equal it on the other side. If you have balance scales, you can do this too however, sadly now most people don’t have balance scales any more (why? they’re so practical and far more aesthetically pleasing!) and so an easier recipe to follow is below.

This recipe is for a lemon Fairy cake as I enjoy the tang of citrus that contrasts with the sweetness of the cake, it makes for more icing choices too.

Pre-heat your oven to 190 degrees C, or 170 for a fan oven.

You will then need -

4 1/2 oz  Butter

4 1/2 oz  Caster Sugar

2  Medium Eggs

4 1/2/ oz  Self Raising Flour

(If you do not have Self Raising Flour use normal white flour, and add a level teaspoon of Baking Powder to the flour, which will do the same thing)

Zest and Juice of 1 lemon

Cake making requires a little more precision than most savoury dishes, so without being neurotic, do try to be accurate with your weighing.

Take the butter and the sugar and cream them together. This is best done in a food mixer if you have one as its heavy work on your arms otherwise. Creaming is beating the two together until they become creamy, and you can see the colour change from a yellowy buttery colour to a pale cream colour. It makes the cakes light and fairy-esque!

Once your butter and sugar are creamed, beat in the eggs. You needn’t be too vigorous with this just a few good beats will do.

Next gently stir in the juice of the lemon, and the zest (which is the finely grated rind of the lemon) and then fold in the flour. Folding is NOT the same as stirring. to fold, bring your spoon around the edge of the bowl and then fold it over to the middle of the bowl, drawing a little more flour into the mixture each time. This method means that you are not breaking up the air bubbles that you have put into the mixture with your creaming and beating, and which are essential to keeping your cakes light.

When you stir in your lemon juice the mixture may well curdle as dairy and acidity don’t go well together, this doesn’t matter as the flour will even it out. Just stir gently until the mixture is smooth and even in consistency.  

Using a bun tray (a tray with hollows in it for bun-cases to fit in) lay out your bun cases and then using a teaspoon and your little finger, fill the cases about 2/3 full of mixture, remember it will rise with cooking so you don’t want it all over the inside of the oven! You needn’t smooth the mixture and do NOT shake or jolt it to even it out, the heat of the oven will sort this all out for you. Jolting will release the air and make them flat as a pancake.

Put them in the oven for 15 minutes. Now, each oven is different, so after this time they may need a little longer, but be careful when you open the oven as the change in temperature and the jolt of opening and shutting the door may make them collapse. If they look done, just gently press your finger into the top of one and see if it springs back. If so, they’re ready!

Take the tray out and carefully put each fairy cake onto a cooling rack.

If you don’t want to make a lemon Fairy Cakes you can make orange ones, lime ones, chocolate ones… With orange or lime, simply substitute an orange or lime for the lemon and proceed as before. For a vanilla cake, add in 2 Tablespoons of milk to the mixture and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

What makes a fairy cake more than just a bun is its topping. It needs to be elegant, simply and tasty. I dislike the current fashion for edible glitter and bright pink sprinkles, I sometimes feel that this is a case of painting the lily or gilding the refined gold and to me detracts from the cake making it gaudy and harajuku-esque. There are so many flowers and natural colours that can complement the cake, not overpower it and so my cakes have been decorated with sprigs and sprays, not sprinkles and splodges.

Strawberry flowers, elderflowers, lavender flowers, rosemary flowers, clover, rose petals, honeysuckle flowers, marigold flowers, fruit-tree blossoms, wild grasses… the list is endless. be careful as some things are NOT ok to eat and although you won’t eat the flower on top, it might seep something noxious into your icing which could be a bit of a problem…

I also used elderflower syrup in my icing as it goes beautifully with lemon.

Elderflower syrup can be made easily by gathering elderflowers, removing the flowers from the main head and then putting them in a saucepan just covered with water and boiling them for 15 minutes. Strain the flowers so that you are left with the juice and then measure the juice. For every 1/2 pint of liquid that you’re left with, pour in 150grams of sugar and then return to the hob on a low heat, stirring constantly to melt the sugar, and then bring to the boil. Boil them for about five minutes and then take off the hob to cool. Once cool, you can bottle it and store it in the fridge. It keeps for around 3 months. I found this recipe in a book on wild eating by Pamela Michael and it is by far the most simple and easy to use recipe for this that I have discovered. The joy of the syrup is that you can also prick the warm cakes with cocktail sticks and then pour over a little syrup which the cakes absorb, making them moist and slightly elderflower-y.