Cupcakes

Cupcakes seem to be the in thing at the moment and some of the ones you can buy from the professionals are amazing, but a little on the pricey side for my taste. I make my own cupcakes using Nigella Lawson's birthday cake recipe. Of course this makes a lot of cupcakes, so if you only want to make a few I would suggest reducing the amount of ingredients you use.

I also recently invested in a mini cupcakes maker and I cannot recommend it enough. You basically switch it on and let it heat up, then pour the mixture in. The instructions say you can put cupcake cases in but I have found it works better without them. The mixture doesn't leave the machine dirty so there is minimal cleaning. The machine takes about 10 minutes to cook the cakes and you can cook upto 6 at a time. I whipped uo a bunch the other day and just let my kids get on with decorating them.

There are lots of different makes out there - but this is the one I got. It's called the Sesio Home Mini Cupcake Maker, comes in pink or blue and costs approximately £30.00 in places such as Argos.