Fairy cakes - advice from experts needed.... (long sorry)

[moodlumthehoodlum]

OK. I have 22 4 yr olds to feed next weekend, and am panicking.

I'm pretty good at baking, but fairy cakes fox me. I made some yesterday to freeze, and they all sort of went thin, as if someone had pressed them from the bottom and the top iyswim. And, I did little ones in a mini muffin tin and the paper cases I put them in are really difficult to get off and they all dried up and weren't great.

So, advice please. Can I a)put the mixture straight in the non stick muffin pan, thus no need for paper cases and b)am I leaving them for too little in the oven, which is why they are shrinking top and bottom? Any longer and they would really dry out I think.

And, finally, the recipe I use is the Nigella one from domestic goddess. Any better ideas?

grateful TIA

I use 2 eggs, 4oz each of flour, sugar & stork. This is apparently prety foolproof!

I use a silicone baking mould lined with paper. I don't try to remove the paper though - leave it on until the cake is served then the eater peels it off!

Oh sorry, you need a pinch of baking powder too!

I have made 3 lots of fairy cakes in my entire life - all over the last 7 days so I figure I am now an expert and qualified to answer this thread!!!

All the fairy cakes were delish BTW

thanks, you are clearly an expert . Stork might be a good idea and I have some of that already so will try it now. Did you use plain flour or s/r? yesterday I used s/r but no baking powder or bicarb.

I think I'm going to risk a batch with no cases and see what happens. (I live life on the EDGE..)

I use s/r flour plus a pinch of bicarb!

Let me know how it works out without the cases! I may make some more myself today since it is miserable outdoors!

I have been experimenting with icing/frosting etc and cream cheese based frosting is dreadful.

Are you doing any icing or fanciness with yours?

well the whole idea I had was to do much smaller ones, to put on a little bit of buttercream and a smartie. This may yet not work but in my idyllic nigella children's party daydream, it seemed like a good idea at the time

Will report back in approx 40mins

i use the be ro recipe that my mum always used and DH is always asking me to make more cakes so they must be ok.

4oz marg (stork), 4 oz caster sugar, 4oz SR flour, 2 eggs, drop of vanilla essence.

crream sugar and marg together till light and creamy

beat in eggs one ata time with a little flour
gently fold in rest of flour
add essence.

put into cases and bake at gas mark 4 -5,for 20 mins until firm to touch

Tasted delicious, but not putting them in the cases cost me dearly.

So, I'm going to try my lovely new recipe in cake cases and see how I get on. In the meantime, my dcs and dh are getting fat.

Thanks all for your help!

I also use

4 oz SR Flour
4 oz sugar
4 oz butter (proper butter)
2 eggs
1 tb bsoda

put all ingredients into the food processor...

put into cake cases, into the over for 15 - 20 mins (always check after 15 mins)

take out and put onto cooling rack (leaving cake cases on) leave to cool down

Melt 200g cooking chocolate and pour over cakes, put into fridge (so chocolate dries quicker as we can't wait to eat them).

peel off paper cases.

Easy... I can pop these out easiliy but for some reason I CAN NOT make biscuits...

Glad you like the recipe!
But a pain about the cases! I love the idea of mini cakes with buttercream, what a stylish party for the 4 year olds!

Homemade cakes are much better for dh and the kids than shop bought ones...my dd and dp are eating rather a lot of them too, and I just won a second hand Kenwood Chef on ebay so I reckon there will be even more cakes to come!