Red Nose Day Cupcakes

Guys, sad news.

Recently, my waistline seems to have doing something resembling the hokey cokey. You know - in, out, in, out. Shake it all about. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. I get tired and eat chocolate to wake myself up
2. I have no time to go to the gym
3. When I bake, I lick the spoon (only after I've finished mixing obviously, I'm not a beast)

So at the beginning of these week, after a weekend in Barcelona that revolved almost entirely around food, I made three decisions: I will take healthy snacks into uni instead of buying chocolate and cake, I will walk from my car to uni and back (thus adding an hour's walk to my daily exercise), I will bake only once a week and when I do I will not lick ANYTHING.

So the sad news is that I am cutting back on the baking a bit. I will still try to have one blog a week for you, and excitingly I will soon be writing a piece about the baking sector business-wise, which I will stick up here.

Anyway, I have baked this week, because my mum asked me to bake some Red Nose Day cupcakes or brownies for her cake sale at work. I decided that it would be easier to make cupcakes Red Nose themed than brownies. Here they are:

They're a bit messy but I needed to revise for a shorthand exam.

You will need:

225g sponge flour
225g butter or margarine suitable for baking (I use Stork)
225g caster sugar
225g eggs, or for those of us who are not crazy and do not weigh eggs, 4 medium eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
200g glacé cherries, halved
200-300g icing sugar
30-50ml water
enough red sugarpaste to make red noses for 24 cupcakes
24 red cupcake/muffin cases

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time and add the vanilla extract.

2. Sift the flour into the mixture in two batches. Do it from nice and high above the bowl to get lots of air into the mixture. Fold the flour in and then fold the cherries in.

3. Put an equal amount of batter into each cupcake case. I use an ice cream scoop because apparently that is the perfect amount of batter. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

4. When the cupcakes are golden brown and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, take them out and leave to cool.

5. When the cupcakes have cooled, level off the tops of any uneven ones with a knife (watch those fingers though). If, like me, you are trying to keep the tops off then probably don't eat them.
6. Beat the icing sugar and water together, adding the water a little at a time as you may not need it all. Spread all the cupcakes with icing.
7. Roll out the red sugarpaste (you may have to dust it with icing sugar to stop it sticking) and use something like a bottle top to cut out all the red noses, place on the cupcakes whilst icing is still wet. If you dusted the sugarpaste with icing sugar then wet a finger and use it to dab away the icing sugar.

8. Sell to raise money for charity. Hurrah!

Until the next time I decide my waistline can take cake and remain intact,

Ellie
xxx