Easter Gluten Free Cupcakes

Makes 12

Ingredients

For the Cakes

200g Stork

200g Caster Sugar

200g Gluten Free Self-Raising Flour

4 large free-range eggs

6 tbsp of milk

For the buttercream

150g unsalted butter softened

300g icing sugar sieved

½ tsp of vanilla extract

Method

For the Cake

1. Pre-heat oven to 140 0C Fan, Gas Mark 

2. Put 12 cupcake cases in a 12 hole muffin tin (I prefer to use muffin cases rather than fairy cake cases as they are bigger

3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy

4. Beat in the eggs one at a time (the mixture will probably look like it’s curdled/split but when the flour gets added it will bring the mixture back.

5. Sieve the flour into the bowl until combined. The mixture will look a little grainy, but believe me, this is fine.

6. Stir in the milk – I don’t always add the whole amount, as you don’t want the mixture too runny.

7. Divide the mixture between the cases – in the cases, I use about 50g of mixture per case will ensure equal sized cupcakes.

8. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the cakes are golden and springy

9. Transfer the cakes onto a wire rack and leave to cool

For the buttercream

1. Put the butter in a bowl or stand mixer and beat until it pales in colour and is softer than when you first put it in the bowl

2. Sieve in half of the icing sugar and mix until combined, making sure to scrape down the bowl

3. Sieve in the remaining icing sugar and add the icing sugar

4. Beat for a couple of minutes, scraping down after a minute and again after the second minute

5. The buttercream should be smooth and not grainy

Decorating

For the Chicks

Round Cutter

Small Heart Cutter

Yellow Fondant/sugar paste

Black Fondant/sugar paste

Orange Fondant/sugar paste

Edible glue

1. To make the chick’s body cut a circle using the round cutter 

2. Then cut two wings per chick using a small heart cutter

3. The eyes are small balls of black fondant rolled between your fingers

4. The nose is a small triangle cut out of orange fondant

5. The wings, eyes and nose are stuck on using edible glue, or you can use a little bit of water.

6. Pipe a swirl of buttercream onto the cake and top with the chick.

For the Easter Eggs

Round Cutter

Oval Cutter

Various colours of Fondant/sugar paste

Edible glue

1. Cut out a circle in your chosen colour to use as the base to stick the egg on

Cut out an oval piece of sugar paste and stick onto your circle base using edible glue/water

2. Then using other colours of sugar paste make patterns using lines, dots, squiggles etc. let your creativity run wild! Stick the decorations onto your fondant egg.

3. Pipe a swirl of buttercream onto the cake and top with your topper

For the Happy Easter Embossed Toppers

Round Cutter

Fluted Cutter

Wilton 2 nozzle

Letter Embossers

Various colours of Fondant/sugar paste

1. Cut out a circle of fondant in your chosen colour

2. Cut out a smaller circle using the fluted end. Using your nozzle, poke circles in each of the flutes

3. Using letter embossers stamp your Easter messages into the fluted topper, taking care not to go right through the topper

4. Stick the fluted topper onto the circle topper

5. Pipe a swirl of buttercream onto the cake and top with your topper

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When you are doing a double depth topper – e.g. the Easter Eggs or embossed toppers don’t roll them too thick otherwise you’ll have quite a lot of sugary icing to bite through.

I also like to make my toppers a day in advance to give them time to dry and firm up before I decorate my cakes. That’s just a personal choice.