Bake Off Tuesdays: Fairy Cakes

So it is the time of year when The Great British Bake Off has returned to our screens and everyone is feeling a little more excited to get their aprons on and try out something new in the kitchen!

I've never really got into the bake off but this year through lockdown I have been obsessed with baking so it has really peaked my interest this year.

For a bit of fun I thought each Tuesday when the bake off is on I could post something I have been loving to bake recently - all be it, a lot less fancy than the challenges we see on the bake off!

So for week one, I have gone for something simple: Fairy Cakes. You really can't go wrong with some fairy cakes and a cuppa tea.

Ingredients

For the cakes:

• 250g baking butter

• 250g sugar

• 4 eggs

• 250g self raising flour

For the toppings:

• 350g icing sugar and a little extra for dusting

• 200g baking butter

• Around 1/3 a jar of strawberry jam (ok, you can have raspberry if you must!)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. Mix the baking butter with sugar.

3. Add eggs one at a time, while mixing.

4. Add in 250g self raising flour.

5. Spoon the mixture out into 18 fairy cake cases, I am personally a perfectionist so I weigh out my mixture so the same goes into each case. I put around 75g of mixture into each case.

6. Bake for around 20 minutes until they have turned slightly golden.

7. Leave on a cooling tray.

8. For the buttercream, mix the icing sugar with the butter until combined and smooth.

9. Cut out a little circle in the middle of each cake.

10. Spoon a little jam into the hole in the cakes, followed by a good dollop of buttercream.

11. With the circle you cut out, cut in halve then press the 'wings' into the centre of the cake to slightly smush the buttercream (slightly smush - it's all getting a bit technical here!)

12. Finish by dusting with some icing sugar.

And voila!

Hope you enjoy,

Hattie x