Rainbow Cupcakes

May is a month of Birthdays. Firstly a Huge Happy Birthday to my biggest sister Kat, and to my Gorgeous friend Anita. Yesterday was Saci's step daughter Francesca's 6th Birthday, My nephew Sudi turned 14 on the 14th, my Man celebrated his 28th on the 21st, and Beautiful Mish will be 30 on the 27th
Time to have your cake and eat it too

Freshly whipped cream and with a bit of colour

My no fail, easy cupcake recipe:

1 and 3/4 Cup Self Raising Flour
1 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Milk (or Soy Milk)
2 Eggs (or equivalent Egg replacer)
125g Butter - Melted
2 Tablespoons Fresh Cream, or Sour Cream
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Icing:
300ml Fresh Cream
1/2 Cup Icing Sugar
Food Colouring

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees. Prepare a cupcake pan with paper patty pans.
Place Flour, Sugar, Milk and Eggs into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric beater. Add melted butter and for 2 minutes. Than Add Cream and Vanilla essence. Beat well. Spoon into your cupcake pan. The mixture makes approximately 16 cupcakes, so divide evenly.
Bake on a timer for 10 min. They should be golden and well risen, if you are unsure, or don't have a fan forced over, poke one of the cakes with a skewer and if it comes out clean, they are ready.
Let cool

In a large bowl beat the cream on high until soft peaks start to form. Tip: the colder the cream is, the quicker it will form, so leave in the refrigerator until ready to beat.
Turn the speed on the beat to low and add the Icing sugar in sections ensuring there are no lumps. Do not over beat as the cream will start to solidify and turn to butter.
Divide the mixture into 4 separate bowls. You will also need 4 spoons so as to not mix the colours.
Start with 3 drops of food colouring, and fold through. Add more, drop by drop, until you have your required colour shade.
This was for my lil nieces birthday party, so I went really bright. I also coloured the cupcake mixture to create a full rainbow cupcake. If you are only making for your girlfriends, I suggest a light pink, yellow or lavender - so only use 2 - 3 drops of colouring for the icing only. Look at the directions on the Food colouring box for making purple.
Using fresh cream, instead of my usual buttery icing mixture, means that I can pile the topping high to make a more dramatic little cake, and its not as sugary, which is better for the kids.

Pics from Frankie's 6th Birthday Party last night:

Luca's tick of approval

I made Frankie a birthday card using a photo from a shoot we did with the kids last year in a graffiti ally in the city:

Saci did a great job making the cake

The twins, and twins and the birthday Girl

We couldn't get one straight face out of any of the twins

While the little ones played, Gully and Luca performed for the Older girls. Ladies men in the making ;)

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