Bake A Little Sunshine - Sunflower Cupcake Bouquet

I made this pretty cupcake bouquet early this evening. To me, it just oozes sunshine. Our new green paper cupcake cases (available in mini and standard size) are a fab complimentary colour for flowery cupcakes. These work really well in cupcake bouquets.

Vanilla cupcakes - makes 12

115g butter (soft - room temperature)

1 cup caster sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp good vanilla extract

3/4 cup plain flour

1/2 rounded cup of self raising flour

1/2 cup of milk

Cream butter and sugar until white and pale. Beat in egg.

Mix in 1/2 sifted flours followed by 1/2 the milk. Repeat with remaining flour and milk.

Bake for approx 20 minutes at 170deg C, or maybe a bit less time if using a silicone bakeare muffin mould as I do.

Frost with your favourite frosting recipe and then decorate !

Vanilla frosting shown here was 125g salted butter, 4 cups sifted icing sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 cup of milk. Add some more icing sugar if desired consistency is not thick enough (mine shown here was perfect first time).

That's was enough to frost 6 cupcakes with a little left over.

I split the buttercream into two batches and coloured one lot yellow and the other lot green. An oreo went on top of  the green buttercream before three layers of petals were piped on.

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - August 2012