Vanilla Cupcakes (Dairy and Egg Free)

This was my first time using this recipe as cupcakes, usually I make one big cake and cover it in Betty Crocker vanilla icing. Normally that's because it's either for a birthday or an order through work. Cupcakes are easier to pass out to friends and family, which I tend to do everytime I bake to save myself from horrific sugary weight gain.

I ran out of vanilla icing so improvised with some chocolate icing, sugar icing and choc buttons to make them look more pretty and appealing.

This batch made 24 fairy cake size cases so cupcake size will probably be around 12-15 I'd imagine.

I'd also recommend not buying cases from Asda as they stick to the cake like glue.

Ingredients

• 225g Dairy free margarine
• 400g sugar 

• 4 eggs worth of egg replacer 

•  310g self raising flour 
• 235ml soy milk 

• 1 tablespoon vanilla essence 

Method  

Pre-heat your oven to 180/ gas 5 and line your trays with cake cases.
If you want to make one big cake then grese and flour a round cake tin and adjust your cooking time to 30 minutes.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.

Make your egg replacer and add to sugar/butter mix, stirring til its blended together.

In a jug, measure your milk out and add the vanilla essence, giving it a stir to mix.

You have to alternately add the flour and milk to the main mix, this is how I do mine -
Add a third of your flour to the creamed mixture, making sure it's folded in.

Then add half of your milk mix, stirring til it's blended, then repeat with the flour, then the milk and ending with flour til it's smooth and creamy.

 If you chuck all your flour in in one go it'll go lumpy, and the opposite if you chuck all the milk in. Doing it in stages helps gain a better consistency and eliminates the floury taste.

Spoon the mixture into the cake cases til two thirds full and bake in the oven for 15 minutes or til golden in colour and a toothpick comes out clean.

 

After cooking, leave in trays for 5 minutes, then move to a cooling rack.

Decorate when cooled with whatever you fancy!