Funfetti Cupcakes

If you are a regular reader you’ll remember I mentioned last week that my wee guy had chicken pox. While I was at home with him he put in a special request for ‘dino sprinkle cupcakes’. I decided to make some funfetti cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and on top of his I sprinkled some tiny dinosaur shaped sprinkles. I didn’t have time to come up with a completely new recipe so I made a slight adjustment to the trusty ‘kiddy cupcakes’ recipe so I could reduce the size of the batch so that it made a dozen full size cupcakes and the same amount of minis.

Ingredients:
125g butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1¼ cups flour
¼ cup cornflour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or good quality vanilla essence)
¼ cup long sprinkles

Buttercream:
125g butter softened
2-3 cups icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or good quality vanilla essence)
food colouring, if desired
sprinkles to top



Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and line your baking tin with cupcake cases.
Cream the butter in sugar until light an fluffy, add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Sift the flour, cornflour and baking powder into a separate bowl.
Alternate adding the flour mix and milk & vanilla essence to the creamed mixture, beat on a low setting to combine.
Fold through sprinkles, gently – do not over mix or the colours will start to ‘bleed’.
Spoon the mixture evenly into cupcake cases. Bake in a pre-heated oven for  15-20 minutes or until a skewer can be removed cleanly/they bounce back to the touch.
Leave cupcakes to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.
To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. At this stage you can add the colouring to your mix and beat it to incorporate. Pipe onto your cupcakes in whatever manner you desire.