Chocolate Cupcakes: Baked by Harry

A few weeks ago my sister had some very special guests to our house, her best friend, her husband and their very special little boy Harry who is now a whole 3 years old.

Harry loves animals so on the Sunday of their visit the plan was for a day trip to our local zoo, Twycross. One of the most important parts of a family day trip is the picnic, and the most important component in a picnic (in my opinion as a baker) is cake! So, the plan was for Harry to have an early morning baking lesson to make chocolate cakes to be the star feature of the picnic.

I am an early riser and on this occasion it was no different, I got up extra early to get everything ready for my little baker friend who joined me as soon as he woke up to begin baking.

For this recipe Harry and I used my go to sponge recipe and adapted it slightly to make them chocolatey.



To make 12 of Harry's chocolate cupcakes you will need:

• 6oz unsalted butter or baking margarine
• 6oz  caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 5oz self raising flour
• 1oz cocoa powder

I don't usually using baking power in my cakes but when baking with little ones it is always wise to add a teaspoon of baking power which will help the cakes to rise if the mixing is a little heavy handed - for little ones the 'folding' method needed for a good rise is quite tricky to master.

For the icing you will need:

• 150g unsalted butter
• 250g icing sugar
• 50g cocoa powder
• A splash of milk

Before starting preheat the oven to 180c fan

To make the sponge:

• Harry started by mixing the butter and the sugar together. 
• Harry then carefully added a little bit of egg at a time and mixed it into the butter and sugar.

• Next, Harry sieved the flour, cocoa and baking power and carefully mixed it all together.

• Harry then picked 12 coloured cases and put them in a muffin tin - Harry took his time with this job and asked everyone going to the picnic which colour they would like.

After picking the perfect cases for his cakes, Harry put a spoonful of mixture into each case. After he did this I put the cakes into the middle of the preheated over and set the timer for 15 minutes.

Whilst we were waiting for the oven to beep Harry and his Daddy decided to do a little bit of quality control and taste test the left over mixture - the verdict was that it was 'yummy'!

• When the beeper when I checked on the cakes, but they weren't quite ready so we put them in for another 3 minutes. If your cakes spring back to the touch and a knife comes out clean, they are done.
• Let your cakes cool before icing - whilst Harry's were cooling he thought about which decorations he wanted to use and tasted a few of them to make sure he was picking the best ones!

I pre-made the icing by mixing together all of the ingredients. Add milk to loosen the icing to a consistency that you are happy with.

When you're ready to ice your cakes you can either spoon the icing on your use a piping bag like Harry did, before adding your chosen decoration.

And that's all there is too it. I really enjoyed baking with Harry and I'm looking forward to his next visit in August so that we can bake again.

Keep your eyes peeled for my blog posts soon for baking with kiddies.
Happy baking - let me and Harry know how you get on!