Recipe: Simple Valentine's Cupcakes

Happy Friday! Today I'm bringing you the final of my three Valentine's themed recipes I've been sharing with you all week. I started the week with Raspberry Shortbread Hearts and followed it up on Wednesday with Strawberry Centred Valentine's Brownies. And today I'm sharing with you the easiest of the three, for those who want to bake their loved one something but don't have the confidence to make anything ridiculously complex or complicated. These cupcakes are so quick and easy to make and taste absolutely divine. A moist vanilla cupcake topped with a strawberry buttercream, makes for an adorable and tasty Valentine bake.

Ingredients
For The Cupcakes
- 100g Caster Sugar
- 100g Stork/Margarine
- 100g Self Raising Flour
- 2 Eggs
- 2Tsp Vanilla Extract

For The Buttercream
- 200g Butter, softened
- 320g Icing Sugar
- 2Tsp Strawberry Extract
- 1 Tube Of Dr Oetker Pink Gel Food Colouring

Method
1- Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a twelve hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2- In a bowl place the butter and caster sugar. Beat until creamy in consistency and pale in colour.
3- Add one egg and a tablespoon of flour. Beat until fully combined, scraping around the edge of the bowl so that there's nothing left sitting on the sides.
4- Repeat with the second egg and a second tablespoon of flour. Again beat until fully incoporated.
5- Fold in the rest of your flour. Take your time with this, you don't want to knock any air of your mixture.
6- Once your flour has been folded into the mix, add your vanilla extract and fold the mixture together. Now would be a great time to scrape around the bowl again so that every thing is fully incoporated and you don't have pockets of flour sitting at the bottom of the bowl.
7- Spoon your mixture into the paper cases and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
8- Leave to cool in their tin for five minutes then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
9- Whilst they're cooling, place your softened butter into a bowl and beat until it's creamy and smooth.
10- Sieve in half of your icing sugar and beat until fully combined. I highly recommend sieving your icing sugar and it'll stop you getting pockets of icing sugar in your buttercream.
11- Add the other half of your icing sugar and beat until fully combined. If the buttercream looks a little too stiff to pipe, add a splash of milk to the mixture to just loosen it slightly.
12- Beat in your strawberry extract and food colouring. You can make the buttercream as bright as you'd like but I personally decided on a paler pink. Remember to scrape the edges of the bowl so there's nothing sitting on the side and everything has been fully incorporated.
13- Once you're happy with your buttercream, spoon it into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle of your choice. Ice your now cooled cupcakes in any pattern you like. You can even add a few sugar decorations to the top when your finished if you wanted to. I was going to add some sugar roses to mine but it turned out I didn't have enough to do the whole batch so I left it at the buttercream.
14- Leave them to set and then share them with your loved ones, or enjoy them all to yourself if that's what you want.