Gorgeous Little Butterfly Cakes or Fairy Cakes!

French Tart's Note:

An absolute must for ANY children's party or even dare I say, adult parties too......weddings, girls night's in, showers, pajama parties & sleep overs, retro buffets, etc. My Mum showed me how to make these--the recipe is an original Be-Ro standard Victoria Sponge mix--very easy to multiply or reduce. I have given a modest amount here for 12-18 butterfly or fairy cakes, depending on what size paper case you use. Expect these to FLY off the plate--sorry, I could not resist the pun!

• Total Time: 45 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 12-18

Yield: 12.0 Cakes

CAKES

• 4 ounces butter or 4 ounces margarine, softened
• 4 ounces caster sugar
• 4 ounces self raising flour
• 2 medium free range eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

BUTTER ICING

• 2 ounces butter, softened
• 4 ounces sieved icing sugar

FLAVOURINGS

• vanilla essence
• lemon rind
• almond essence
• orange rind
• rose essence

TOPPINGS

• icing sugar
• colored crystal sugar
• crystallised rose petal
• lavender flowers

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 190° C or 375°F.
2. Have ready between 12 -18 paper cases depending on size. Small pie or cake tins will take standard paper cases. These cakes SHOULD be small and dainty and NOT standard "muffin" size. (However, you can make them bigger and adjust the cooking time by 5 minutes.).
3. Cream butter or margarine with sugar until light, fluffy and pale in colour. By hand is best but a hand whisk is fine too!
4. Beat the eggs and add them bit by bit with spoons of sifted flour. Bit by bit ensures the mixture does not curdle.
5. Gently fold in an any flour left over when the egg is used up.
6. Add the vanilla or any other flavourings desired - lemon and orange is good too! If the mixture is a little too stiff add a little milk or juice of orange/lemon.
7. Half fill the paper cases with the mixture and bake for about 15 minutes until risen and firm but NOT too dark.
8. Cool cakes and then cut a slice from the top of each cake and cut this in half.
9. Place a little butter icing of your choice on the top of each cake and arrange the "wings" around the icing - round edge facing the outside and the cut edge to the inside and angled towards the bottom - like BUTTERFLY or FAIRY wings! Dust with extra icing sugar and watch them fly away!
10. If you want to add colouring to the vanilla cakes, pink is really good with pink icing too! I once sprinkled on crystallised rose petals for a Christening Party & I also used rose essence in the butter icing, very sophisticated!
11. N.B. You can multiply this recipe very easily, e.g: 6 ozs of butter, flour & sugar to 3 eggs; 8 ozs of butter, flour and sugar to 4 eggs & so on! It also makes VERY good big Victoria Sponge cakes - just slice and fill with a filling of your choice -- lemon curd, butter icing, fresh whipped cream & jam -- the list is endless!

Reviews

[Persian Berry 2011]

For French Tart and also the person who made the adorable little white cake with sparkling sugar on top. I was so enchanted with that little white cake that I bought and rounded up what I need to make some like it (hopefully). But I wanted to ask you what those sugar circles are on top of your butterfly cakes, the short cupcakes with the raspberry-colored runny frosting with what looks like sugar crystal circles of lavendar and white. Did you make them or are they are some specialty item you bought? I fear you posted so long ago you won't see this now, but thank you for posting what you did.

[tamalita62]

I made this with my young nieces and it was so fun!!! Delicious too. We used a teeny tiny uptake pan (literally the Itty Bitty Baking Kit) cooked at 350 F for 10 minutes. Wonderful.

[under12parsecs]

Lovely and light little cakes. I halved the recipe and used two 3 inch cake pans and split each one in half horizontally to make 2 adorable little layer cakes. As they are for a friend on her 21st birthday I added rum along with the vanilla both in the cakes and in the frosting, then dusted them with sugar. I had intended on topping them with sliced strawberries before sugaring them, however my DH seems to have eaten an entire pint of berries since yesterday...Thank you, French Tart, for yet another delightful recipe. -Kari