Vanilla Cupcakes with a surprise centre

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a muffin tray with paper cases.

2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together till they look pale.

3. In another bowl, beat the eggs lightly. Then slowly start adding the eggs to the large bowl. Mix well

4. Add the vanilla extract.

5. Fold in the sifted flour taking care to mix lightly.

6. Add the milk – remember that the mixture should have a dropping consistency.

7. Spoon the mixture to half- fill  the paper cases.

8. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Check with a skewer for doneness and it should be clean if inserted in the centre.

9. After ten minutes, remove to cool on a wire rack.

10. When completely cool- after a couple of hours, start decorating them.

Method for making the Buttercream Icing

1. Beat the butter in a large bowl until light, soft and fluffy.

2. Add in half a packet (125g)  of the Sugar and Crumble icing sugar and beat until smooth.

3. Add the remaining icing sugar and then add the 2 tbsp milk, more if necessary till the mixture is smooth and creamy.

6. Decorate the cupcakes

Method for Decorating the cupcakes

For the surprise centre, scoop out the centre and fill it with jam/ peanut butter or anything that you fancy. I used beaten strawberry jam. My job was simplified by this cute lovely new Cupcake corer from Oxo.

Just a poke and twist and then pull out the core- easy peasy!

Fill it in with something of your choice, pop the lid back on and then, just  whip out that icing bag, pop in the icing and get decorating.

I went bonkers, I even grated some lemon zest over it.

NOTE: For this Icing I used the Raspberry Ripple Icing. I found it really easy to use and the icing really flavoursome .. very sweet. So the bit of lime zest balanced it out well.

Now for the second cupcake:

Here, I used the Jaffa Twist Icing to decorate. Some cupcakes had surprise Nutella centre. The Jaffa twist paired very well with Nutella.

I simply splashed some buttercream onto the muffins to decorate.

Here my nifty little OXO cupcake icing knife was very useful. I used it to slide over the buttercream really effortlessly and then gave it those little lifts to make it look swirly- just touch and lift.

And then I used the most wonderful gadget- the OXO Bakers dusting wand.

It is so cool, and literally no mess. Just pop the wand into the cocoa jar.

Turn the lever, get the cocoa in and then dust!

I simply love it!

The designs and icing will vary- just experiment and you will enjoy your creations!

Disclaimer: I was sent the gadgets by Oxo and the Icing sugar by Sugar and Crumbs.

Get yours here!