Butterfly Cakes

After having spent an amazing couple of nights in Bude and taken part in Spin for Life, I wasn’t left with much time to prepare for Father’s Day… I’d got a card and present sorted for my Dad, but my sister was hosting a BBQ at her house in the afternoon and come 11am Sunday morning, I still had nothing to take with me. Looking through the cupboards, I could only find the bare essentials for making cupcakes, so I figured, why not just make traditional butterfly cakes? I think I’ve got so lost in coming up with new ideas, and trying different flavours, that I’d forgotten how good a plain old butterfly cake can be! So, here’s to going back to basics!

Ingredients:

For the sponges:

150g unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

60ml milk

1tsp vanilla essence

150g self raising flour

1/2tsp baking powder

For the filling:

100g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter

6tsp jam – I used strawberry, but any flavour works well

Line a muffin tin with cases and pre-heat your oven to 180c.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs, milk and vanilla essence and give it a quick mix before sifting in the flour and baking powder. Fold the flour into the batter until it’s all completely combined.

Fill the cases to about ¾ full, and bake for 15-17 minutes. They should be lightly golden on top, springy to the touch, and a skewer inserted in the middle of the cakes should come out clean when they’re done.

Leave the cakes to cool on a wire rack while you make the butter cream.

In a small bowl, carefully cream together the icing sugar and butter until it’s light and fluffy.

Once the cakes are cool, use a sharp knife to cut a round well in the tops of the cakes. Take care not to go too far down into the sponge – you just need a well big enough to hold a little jam and buttercream. Put the ‘lids’ to one side.

Add about ½ a teaspoon of jam into the middle of each well, then top with about a teaspoon of buttercream. Cut the ‘lids’ in half, and stick back on the cakes, upside down, so they look a bit like wings.

And that’s it. Simple, but delicious! Why not try using lemon curd instead of strawberry jam, or you could fill them with Nutella or peanut butter if you’d rather.