Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes (34 page)

Aloha! Now a call could come anytime from a global celebrity planning a Hawaiian themed birthday bash (luau) and wanting volcanic cupcakes. My advice is to keep this hot little recipe up your floral sleeve! This makes about 16 fairy cakes.

Ingredients

120g or 4 oz plain flour

140g or 5 oz soft light brown sugar

1½ teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoon cinnamon

40g or 1½ oz butter (softened)

120ml coconut milk

1 free range egg

8 slices of tinned pineapple rings chopped up into very small pieces

Paper cases? Well...I’m thinking metallic blue for the sea – but you could go for Hawaiian shirt floral – after all it’s a luau!

Hawaiian Frosting

300g icing sugar

175g cream cheese

12 cocktail umbrellas and edible sugar flowers

Method

Pre-heat oven to 170°c/325°f/Gas Mark 3.

Place floral lei around your neck and sift the flour, sugar, baking powder cinnamon into the bowl then add the butter and mix well until it looks like golden rubbly sand on a sundrenched Hawaiian beach. Next, beat in the coconut milk and egg with a whisk.

Now remember that pineapple upside down cake your mum always made? As homage to that, put a couple of pieces of the chopped pineapple into the bottom of each paper case and top with the cake batter. Pop into the oven and sigh as the scent of pineapple wafts across the kitchen, reminding you of those endless summer nights when you were 18 and drank Malibu and your upper arms didn’t resemble old porridge.

For the Frosting

Whisk the icing sugar and cream cheese until light and fluffy then apply to cooled cakes. Make a cone-like volcano-shaped topping and stick a cocktail umbrella in and dot with lots of little sugar flowers. Mix an exotic cocktail, sit back, enjoy the cupcake view and make like you’re lying on that beach in Honolulu!

From the ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ collection.

Dance the night away with this red velvet cake covered in cream cheese frosting, dressed in green glitter and infused with a high kick of lime zest. Named after the ballroom dance, this is basically a simple dance recipe with a few exciting moves. This fairy cake is
Sex in the City
, it’s the whole cast of
Glee
singing together...it’s you and me in high heels...this is how we roll! Makes about 14-16 cakes.

Ingredients

110 g or 4 oz cup self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

60g or 2 oz cocoa powder

110g or 4 oz softened butter

110g or 4 oz cup caster sugar

38ml bottle of red food colouring – (using liquid colouring can affect the consistency, but I’ve used it in emergencies and it’s fine. However, for a really blingy red sponge use a whole pot of concentrated red paste instead).

2 large eggs

12 metallic paper cases (shiny dancing shoes)

Cream Cheese Frosting

300g or 10 ½ oz icing sugar

60g or 2 oz cream cheese

2 tablespoons lime juice

Zest from 1 lime

Edible green bling

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 170°c/325°f/Gas Mark 3, fill a cake tin with shiny paper cases and start that music (may I suggest a favourite ballad). Shimmy as you sift the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder into a large bowl. Height, darling – make those cakes light on their feet!

Add the butter, eggs and red colouring (a whole 38ml bottle of colouring will give your sponge a real rich, red shade). Now with a slow rhythm, whisk until everything is combined and your mix is so red it’s dancing in the bowl! If the mixture is a little dry, add a splash of milk. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes or until risen and springy to the touch.

Once the cakes are out of the oven let them chill out on a wire rack.

For the Frosting

Now mix the cream cheese, icing sugar, lime juice and zest in a bowl with a whisk or a wooden spoon and a muscular arm. Once it’s light and fluffy apply to the cooled cakes and while getting your breath back, do a little cha cha cha with your arms and sprinkle that green bling all over your fairy cakes baby!

Take a bow!

Inspired by nude espresso and naked baristas, these coffee fairy cakes will keep you up all night baby!

I know you love your coffee strong and hot – so here is my special recipe and there’s nothing fairy-like about these cute little caffeine bombs. We’re not talking ‘a hint’ of coffee – we’re talking caffeine fix in a cake, which BTW will increase one’s metabolism, thus allowing more cake to be eaten. If you can’t take the pace and are looking for something more mellow put less coffee in the mix – you wimp!

My recipe makes 12 fairy cakes or 30 baby fairies. The mini versions are a sophisticated companion to enjoy with after dinner coffee (much like yourself Al). The big babies are great for coffee mornings, bake sales and random social gatherings of coffee enthusiasts and naked baristas. Chocolate covered coffee beans are a great little topper – but being a bad girl I like to sprinkle a little gold fairy cake dust and give it some bling.

Ingredients

110 g or 4 oz self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

110g or 4 oz softened butter

110g or 4 oz caster sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon of coffee granules dissolved in 1 tablespoon of hot water

Coffee Frosting

200g or 7 oz icing sugar, sifted

1 tablespoon of coffee granules dissolved in 1 tablespoon of hot water (add more or less to taste)

Chocolate-covered coffee beans or party glitter – both optional depending on your mood and who you’re baking for.

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180°c/350°f/Gas Mark 4 and fill a cake pan with paper cases. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the eggs, the caster sugar and the softened butter. Now completely dissolve a tablespoon of coffee granules in a tablespoon of very hot water. Add this to the other ingredients in the bowl and whisk until soft, creamy, coffee heaven emerges. I bet you can’t resist a little slurp. Delicious? Told you so. Now put the mixture into the paper cases. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes and make yourself a well-earned cup of coffee while allowing the scent of sweet coffee to permeate the air (multi-sensory coffee experience) while leafing through various celebrity mags.

Once out of the oven and slightly cooled, take the cakes from the tin and place on a cooling rack.

For the Coffee Frosting

When cakes are completely cooled, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and dissolve the coffee granules in hot water. Combine until the mixture forms a soft, thick paste. Taste the icing and if you want a stronger coffee flavour then ‘bring it on’ and add a dissolved teaspoon of granules. If you just can’t keep up and want less coffee taste, add more icing sugar and a little hot water. If the icing is too thick, add hot water and/or coffee to taste!

Now top the cakes using the back of a teaspoon or a knife. Eat the first one and make sure it’s all utterly gorgeous – you can still adjust icing accordingly. If you’re not sure – eat another one and keep this up until you know exactly what flavour you want.

If the icing thickens too much while you eat and ice, put the spoon or knife in hot water and continue.

Now make another cup of coffee and consume more coffee cakes for more multi-sensory coffee bliss.

These simple-to-make cheeky little fairies are lively, sweet and just a little bit spicy. The heat is in the buttercream, so if you are baking for children or don’t like chilli, just bake the cakes as directed and leave the chilli out of the buttercream...they are still cha chas, just a little more restrained.

Now before you begin just let your hips sway very slowly, feel that music and just let those Latin rhythms pulse through the body as you cha cha round the kitchen collecting the ingredients. Makes about 12 cakes.

Ingredients

2 free range eggs

110g or 4 oz caster sugar

110g or 4 oz self raising flour

110g or 4 oz butter, melted

½ tablespoon cocoa powder

12 red metallic paper cases (they remind me of strappy scarlet dancing shoes).

Chilli buttercream

70g or 2 ½ oz butter, softened

140g or 5 oz icing sugar

25g or 1 oz cocoa

1-2 tablespoons milk

¼ level teaspoon chilli (or to taste)

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ tablespoon milk

Red sparkly bits and edible red glitter

Method

Cha cha over to the oven and turn it to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and fill cake tins with paper cases.

Now whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy – all the time swaying those hips and taking little cha cha steps (it improves the texture, trust me). Slow down the tempo now and
fold
in the flour, cocoa and melted butter.

Spoon mixture into scarlet stilettos (or paper cases) and bake for 20-25 minutes until springy to the touch.

For the Frosting

When the cakes have chilled out on their wire rack – they will be ready for their dancing dresses.

Beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add the remaining icing sugar, chilli and cinnamon and the milk and beat the mixture until creamy and smooth. Check the taste and add a little more chilli if you fancy something hot, hot, hot and beat in extra milk, if necessary, to loosen the mixture.

Now top those cha cha fairies and throw on some red sparkles and bling, take a big chocolate chilli bite and dance the night away.

These fragrant fairies are perfect with a cup (china of course dear) of Earl Grey tea and a Jane Austin novel. You will recall we baked these for the ‘Fashionista Afternoon Tea’ and they went down very well, albeit some of the skinnier ubermodels munched only on rose petals and avoided the calorific cake. So if baking these for fashionistas I would recommend baby cakes because a whole one would be far, far too much! This recipe makes about 12 standard size cakes.

Ingredients

115g or 4 oz butter

115g or 4 oz caster sugar

2 free range eggs

115g or 4 oz self raising flour

1 tablespoon rose water

12 pretty pink paper cases

Rose Icing

200g or 7 oz icing sugar

4 tablespoons rose water

Frosted Petals

12 freshly plucked rose petals

1 egg white

1 tablespoon caster sugar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180°c/350°f/Gas Mark 4 and fill a cake pan with 12 large paper cases – or 24 small ones (if fashionistas or little girls are coming to tea). Now beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time and keep beating. Now sift the flour and fold it into the mixture using that lightness of touch you are famed for! Open the rosewater and stop and smell the roses for a minute ah...that’s better. Now stir in the rosewater and put the heavenly scented batter into the fairy cases and pop into the oven for about 20 minutes until golden and springy to the touch.

As the cakes bake, filling the kitchen with divine fragrance, imagine you’re in a rose garden and pluck petals from a (preferably pink) rose and brush each rose petal with the egg white, covering it completely, but lightly (don’t soak it.*) Now with a fragrant flourish, sprinkle with caster sugar and leave to dry.

NB* I find garden roses are great for crystallizing but tend to wrinkle more than bought, cut roses so be very light with the egg white.

For the icing

Once the cakes are cooled, begin on the icing. Mix the sugar and rose water together to form a thick paste and add the tiniest drop of pink food colouring (to match the rose petal colour or perhaps a little lighter). Apply icing to the cooled cakes and top with a sugared rose petal. Dig out your best china, place exquisite rose-topped fairy on the china, make a pot of pale golden Earl Grey and enjoy a little Jane Austen under a willow tree in the garden.