Easter cupcakes with Lauren Elizabeth

Hello everyone! Welcome back to the second monthly collab with the lovely Lauren Elizabeth,if you haven't seen our first collab together please go have a peek at that first and then come straight back as it will explain what me and Lauren are doing together and you will get to know Lauren a little better.Also don't forget to go and have a look at Lauren's blog to see her half of the collab.

Now me and Lauren agreed to put our aprons on,pickup our kitchen weapons and march into the kitchen for this collab,as baking is something we both enjoy anyway and is a favourite hobby of mine,not that I am a chef (yet) or particularly good at it.

I thought I would do something fairly simple that even I shouldn't be able to mess up and that is cupcakes,but with easter in mind I wanted to give them an eastery twist by adding some little bunnies and egg pictures along with some sweets - if you don't celebrate easter or don't want those decorations for whatever reasons then you can just leave them off.

These cupcakes are fairly quick to make with a preparation time of less than 30 minutes and a cooking time of 10 to 30 minutes,making a total of 12 small cupcakes or 9 larger cupcakes,it is a perfect easy and quick bit of baking.

For this recipe you will need:

110g/40z butter or margarine,softened at room temperature

110g/40z caster sugar

2 free range eggs,lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

110g/40z self-raising flour

1- 2 tbsp milk

Any decoration you would like

For the buttercream icing you will need:

140g/5oz butter,softened

280g/10oz icing sugar

1-2 tbsp milk

a few drop of food colouring

Now lets get started with the baking:

1.Preheat the oven to 180c/350F/gas 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.

2.Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale.Beat in the eggs a little at a time and stir in the vanilla extract.

3.Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon,adding a little milk until the mixture is of a dropping consistency.Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.

4.Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes,or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean.Set aside to cool for 10 minutes,then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

5.For the buttercream icing,beat the butter in a large bowl until soft.Add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth

6.Then add the remaining icing sugar with one tablespoon of milk,adding more milk if necessary,until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

7.Add the food colouring and mix until well combined.

8.Spoon the icing into a piping bag with a star nozzle (or nozzle of your choice) and pipe the icing using a spiralling motion onto the cupcakes in a large swirl.Or like me you can use my method of taking mixture with a spoon and spreading it in any way possible.

9.Let your creative side out and add your decorations to the cake and enjoy!

And there you have it my recipe for perfect vanilla cupcakes,every time.I hope you try out this recipe as they did come out pretty delicious,if I do say so myself and it's something fun to do over easter.

I hope you enjoyed my second collab with Lauren,but remember this is only half of it so make sure to head over to Simply Lauren Elizabeth to have a look at Lauren's half and to see what yummy easter treats she made.

We will both see you next month for our third collab together,which I believe is on the 30th of April so make sure you write it down!

Sophie Jane & Lauren Elizabeth