Fairy cakes

I've always been rubbish at creaming butter, so I was looking forward to the Kenwood taking away that effort.

Ingredients

110g butter, softened at room temperature
110g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
110g self-raising flour
1-2 tbsp milk

For the butter icing

110g butter, softened at room temperature
220g icing sugar
2-3 drops food colouring
1 tbsp milk

Preparation method

1.  Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a 12-hole fairy cake tins with paper cases.

2.  Cream the butter and sugar together using the K-beater on a medium speed until pale. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, and stir in the vanilla extract.

3.  Fold in the flour using the K-beater on a slow speed. Add a little milk until the mixture is a soft dropping consistency and spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.

4.  Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

5.  For the butter icing, cream the butter using the K-beater then slowly add the icing sugar. Add the drops of food coloring until the desired colour is achieved and add milk which improves the consistency. To ice the fairy cakes, pipe the icing over the cakes and set aside until the icing hardens.