Laura's Blog: Father's day!

Although Fathers day has been and gone I thought I'd share a cupcake recipe that I did for my dad on fathers day, but they would also be fun to make for any other special occasion. Recently I have been watching an Irish family called the SacconeJoly's on YouTube, where Anna (the woman) has been uploading baking recipes onto her channel. This recipe was one of her recent cupcake recipes and they were too cute not to make myself!! However, I did make a few changes as I couldn't find some of her ingredients and also my dad prefers vanilla cupcakes to chocolate.

Cupcakes:
- 150g Butter/ Margarine
- 150g Caster sugar
- 150g Self raising flour
- 3 Eggs
Icing:
- 50g butter
- 100g Icing sugar
Toppings:
I used ground coconut covered in green edible powder instead of green sprinkles.
- Round mints
- Straws
- Post it notes
- Ground plain biscuits (e.g. digestives, rich tea etc)

Method:
For making cupcakes I just use a standard creaming method as I feel that this creates light, airy, spongy cakes.
1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius and line your cupcake tin(s) with cases.
2. Place the (softened) butter/margarine into a mixing bowl along with the sugar,and mix together with a wooden spoon until fully combined and of a creamy consistency.
3. Place the eggs into the bowl one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each egg.
NOTE: Don't worry if the mixture curdles, this is due to the eggs being too cold but this does not effect the cakes in any way, once the flour is added it will go back to normal.
4. Next add the flour and fold in with a metal spoon until the ingredients are all combined.
5. Finally place the mixture into the cupcake cases until they are about 3/4 full.
6. Place in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until they are golden brown and cooked all the way through.

Topping:
1. Place the (softened) butter into a bowl along with the icing sugar and mix until combined/ of a smooth consistency.
2. Once the cupcakes are out of the oven and cooled completely, cover the top of each cupcake with a thin layer of the buttercream. This is used as a base for the other toppings to stick to.
3. Place the coconut into a small bowl and cover with the green dust until it is of a grass colour. Then place this on one side of the cupcake as the green.
4. Then finely crush the biscuits and place on the other half of the cupcake as the bunker.
5. Cut your straws to about 5cm and on the sticky side of your post it notes cut a small triangle. Place the triangle on the end of the straw (as a flag) and place in the grass side of the cake.
6. Finally, place the round mint in the (bunker) biscuit side of the cake as the golf ball.