Christmas Fairy Cakes

I can’t believe the first term of the academic school year is drawing to an end and I’ve survived my first term in business. Would I change anything? I’ve certainly learnt some lessons, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Let’s just hope in 2011 my success continues to grow.

One of the schools I’ve worked in this term hosted an Afternoon Tea Party yesterday to raise money for a school in Ghana. I baked them some Gingerbread Men, Eccles Mince Pies (these always go down well!) along with Christmas Fairy Cakes. This was a perfect opportunity to use up ingredients that were left from this term of cookery along with experimenting with a technique I saw on Kirsty & Phil’s Perfect Christmas.

I coloured the sugar paste Wednesday evening and wrapped it up in clingfilm ready to use Thursday morning. What I didn’t anticipate was the colours in the icing becoming more intense. I’ve never noticed icing doing that before, hence the quite bright, borderline garish colours. You can find the instructions for making the bows here. Although I could do with a bit more practice, I enjoyed making them. Next time I would roll the top stripes a bit thinner so they don’t stick out as much from the bottom layer when the fondant is bent to make the bows.

Christmas Fairy Cakes
Makes 12 fairy cakes

100g caster sugar

100g butter, softened

100g self-raising flour

2 eggs, beaten

200g icing sugar

freshly boiled water

sugarpaste

food colouring

1) Preheat oven to 180oc. Arrange cake cases in fairy cake tin. Beat together butter and sugar then one by one beat in the eggs.

2) Stir in flour until ingredients are well combined. Half fill each fairy case with the batter. Don’t over fill or you won’t have room for the icing to puddle.

3) Bake for 15 min until risen and golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

4) Add boiling water to the icing sugar until you have a smooth icing that pours off the spoon. Using a teaspoon slowly pour the icing on top of the cakes. You can guide the icing somewhat as to where you want it to go and it almost acts like self-levelling concrete. Once you have finished icing place your fondant decorations on the icing and leave to set.