Happy Valentine’s Day my lovelies!
I hope you’re all having a wonderful day, and feeling the love.Β Remember, you don’t have to have a significant other, or multiple admirers to feel validated today.Β Take the time to go out with your friends for a drink or some dinner.Β Or spend the evening in and pamper.Β I find that there are very few things that pep me up, as much as a face mask, good scrub down, glass of wine and some choccie will.
I’m lucky enough that Hubs and I are off for a delicious dinner tonight.Β It’s only our second Valentine’s Day together, but our first one as a married couple, so it’s extra special for us.Β I’m looking forward to sitting down and maybe sharing a bottle of wine.
I love sharing the love with EVERYONE on Valentine’s Day, so I whipped up a batch of delicious cupcakes for my office.Β I went with a regular vanilla cupcake, and went a little more fancy for the icing.Β I did a buttercream, then added some cream cheese in to make it a little richer.Β Then I added some Flavour Nation White Chocolate flavour drops.Β WOWZERS – it tastes like there is real white chocolate in the icing!Β I baked them in red cupcake wrappers, and added some heart shaped sprinkles and big red icing flowers.
VANILLA CUPCAKES
(makes between 12 and 24 cupcakes)
Ingredients:
400g white sugar
4 eggs
300g flour
250ml milk
175ml oil
2 & 1/2 tsp baking powder (makes them extra fluffy)
2 tsp vanilla essence
Method:
Preheat oven to 180Β°C.Β Line cupcake pans with paper cupcake cases.
Beat sugar & eggs for about 1 minute, until slightly thickened.
Add milk, oil, vanilla, flour & baking powder, & beat for another minute, until batter is smooth & creamy (do not overbeat).
Fill cupcakes cases until they’re 2/3rds full of batter.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden.
Buttercream and Cream Cheese Icing:
I didn’t make this with a recipe.Β I just added a couple of tablespoons of butter and half a bag of icing sugar into a mixer and beat for a couple of minutes.Β I then added a couple of tablespoons of cream cheese and beat until smooth.Β When I was happy with the consistency (it had to be thick enough to pipe onto the cupcakes), I added 10 drops of Flavour Nation White Chocolate flavouring.
You can check out one of my other recipes here:
The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
Did you do any baking for Valentine’s Day?Β If so, what did you make?
