Recipe: Dairy Free Fairy Cakes

I’ve made these many times for birthday parties, play-dates and sometimes just to bake to entertain the kids for an hour on a rainy afternoon. It has the added bonus of keeping them quiet after too when they’re gobbling them up. And yes, ‘gobbling’ is the right verb. It is a great recipe to make with the kids as you just lob everything into a bowl and mix, or use hand blender to mix.

Ingredients:

140g softened margarine

140g golden caster sugar

125g self-raising flour (For the chocolate version, use 100g flour, 25g cocoa)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 eggs

To decorate: Liquorice Allsorts, Jelly Tots, Wine Gums, black writing icing, mini marshmallows etc.

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C 375F Gas5 (180C for fan oven)

2. Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix until smooth. I use a hand blender for this, or put everything into the food processor and give it a whizz.

3. Using two forks, put the mixture into the bun cases, filling each to about 2/3. I use either regular size bun cases or mini muffin sized ones. It takes much longer to divide the mixture into the tiny cases, but they are great for toddlers.

4. Bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly golden. Bake for 15 minutes if doing the mini muffin size.  You should yield 12-15 buns or 28-30 mini muffins.

5. To make glacé icing, mix 225g of sieved icing sugar with 2 tablespoons of warm water and a few drops of colouring if desired. Mix until smooth. If you want more than one colour, divide the mixture before adding colour to each portion.

6. Decorate with glace icing and sweets you can make animal faces with pieces of liquorice and sweets, or any kind of designs you wish.