Children's Party Cakes

I made this selection of goodies for my daughter Chloe's 2nd Birthday. I made regular and mini sized cupcakes (I thought the smaller ones were ideal for Chloe's little friends). I also made a sponge cake, which was her Birthday cake. I think it's nice to have something of a decent size to put those candles in!

I used Nigella Lawson's Lavender Trust Cupcake recipe, which I must say it the easiest recipe in the entire world. I used plain Sugar instead of Lavender Sugar, and replaced 25g of the self raising flour with Cocoa and 1/4 tsp of baking powder for the Chocolate ones. For the Plain ones I added a few drop of Vanilla Essence to the mixture. Out of her recipe I got approx 6 regular and 20 mini. I would recommend if your doing mini ones to only fill the cases by 1/3 or under, otherwise you will end up with one huge cupcake (I speak from experience!!!).

For the Butter Icing I used my usual 50% Butter 50% Icing sugar ratio. I usually get great results with this recipe, and it is so easy to play around with. This time I swapped 20% of the Icing sugar for Cocoa, this was used to top my Chocolate cupcakes and added a few drops of Vanilla essence for the Vanilla ones.

The main cake was made with a Paul Hollywood sponge recipe. I filled this with Homemade Strawberry Jam and whipped cream and topped it with more cream and Strawberries (Chloe's favourite!!!). All in all, they went down a treat and enjoyed by all! :0)


 Cupcakes:
http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/lavender-trust-cupcakes-2478

Sponge:
http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/516400