It was my FIL’s birthday yesterday and we went for an afternoon visit so we could say happy birthday and give him his present.
B1 and B2 get extremely excited about birthdays these days: one, because they love giving presents and helping to open them, two, because it means we get to sing happy birthday and blow out the candles and three, birthdays mean CAKE!!
When I told B1 and B2 this morning that it was Poppy’s birthday and we were going to make him a cake, to say they were excited is a massive understatement. They spent the morning saying ‘Yay, yay, yay’, and B1 walked around blowing into the air, practicing blowing out the candles.
The excitement exploded when I said they were going to help me bake the cakes. This was the first time I had attempted to let B1 and B2 help me in the kitchen to this extent. They each got to stand on a chair by the bench and help me measure and mix in the ingredients. The highlight was cracking the eggs.
I am happy to report it went much smoother than I imagined. B1 was very well behaved and I only had to get B2 down and threaten eviction from the kitchen 3 times (when he tried to pull the dirty dishes out of the sink, or threw the crockery measuring cups into the sink from a meter away, or when he tried to stick his whole hand into the bowl of cake batter for the fourth time).
Poppy is a big St George Dragons fan. So we went with red and white for our color scheme.
Banana Berry Cupcakes
Ingredients:
Cake
2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup sugar
1 pinch salt
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
3 eggs
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup milk
2 small bananas
1 cup mixed berries (I used frozen berries)
1 punnet strawberries
Icing
1 packet icing sugar
boiling water
food colouring (your choice of colour)
Method:
Cake
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Mix all ingredients except milk and fruit together in a bowl. Add in the milk and combine well. Mush up the bananas and mix through batter. Stir in the mixed berries.
Pour mixture evenly into a greased muffin tray.
Cook for approx 30-35 minutes.
Place aside and allow to cool.
Icing
Mix icing sugar with enough boiling water to form a smooth paste. Add your food colouring of choice and mix well.
Spread the icing over the top of your cupcakes.
Slice the strawberries and place a piece of strawberry in the center of each cupcake.
Much fun was had blowing out the candles and devouring these yummy cakes.
