Please help a novice baker!

[NearlyOne]

Am a complete novice at baking and am want to practice making some fairy cakes for DS's first birthday. The recipes recommend using an electric mixer to cream the butter and sugar. I don't have one of the Dualit style one, but I do have one of these www.tesco.com/direct/tesco-hbs07-handblender-set/203-4542.prd (an hand blender with a whisk attachment). Will the whisk attachment do for creaming the butter and sugar properly and make it nice and light etc.?

Thanks (and sorry if it's a stupid question!)

Don't know about the attachment but i always cream butter and sugar by hand. Always turns out ok!

Have you got a wooden spoon? With a bit of elbow grease, I reckon that will be better than the whisk - that's how I do did it till I got my shiny Kenwood

use a wooden spoon. You want to sort of beat it together rather than whisk it.

That blender will do it fine

Thanks everyone! I am a pretty lazy cook and am always looking for shortcuts so I was sort of hoping to get away with not doing it by hand! But maybe that doesn't work with baking...

There's a recipe on here which uses melted butter and you whisk the egg and sugar, makes the best and lightest fairy cakes EVER!

best ever fairy cakes

Use the electric whisk with the all-in-one method and you won't go wrong.

All you need is 4 oz each of SR flour, butter/margarine and sugar, 1 tsp baking powder and 2 eggs. Just bung everything into a bowl and whisk until just blended. You can use a wooden spoon instead because it isn't very onerous mixing up an all-in-one recipe. Don't overbeat otherwise you will activate the gluten in the flour and the cakes won't rise. Divid mixture into 18 fairy cake cases and bake at gas mark 4 (180 deg, or 160 deg in a fan oven) for 15 to 20 minutes. I would check the cakes after 15 minutes.

I never make sponge cakes with the long winded creaming method any more because it is time consuming, uses up too much electricity/makes your arm ache and the all-in-one method is more reliable.

dd made a cake at school using the all in one method and it was absolutely vile! So dry and flat. It rose then collapsed by the looks of what she brought home.

Marsy's lemon drizzle cake is a great all in one though.

Copied and pasted from one of her posts -

Lemon Drizzle Cake. Works every time.

You can halve my recipe, or do a third less or just do the whole shebang!

12oz flour
9oz caster sugar
9oz butter/marg
4 eggs
3 tsps baking powder
6 tbsp milk
rind of 2 lemons

Mix together. Pour into large baking tray. Bake for about 30-35 mins at 180.
Warm the juice of the 2 lemons in microwave for about 20secs.

When cake cooked, prick with fork. Spoon over 3-4 tbsp lemon juice.

Mix the rest of the lemon juice with as much icing sugar as you want (dependent on the thickness of icing that you want).

Yum!!!!!!!!!!!!