Quite often when deciding what to bake, I’m swayed in the direction of small or portioned cakes and traybakes. In my humble opinion, there is not a better small cake than a fairy cake. What? I hear you say, surely you mean a cupcake? Aren’t fairy cakes and cupcakes just the same thing under a different name? What’s in a name? Does it really matter? They both taste divine.
So with all the questions whirling away in my head and taking over from precious baking time, I thought I’d do a little research to help clarify the situation.
Fairy Cakes are quintessentially English or British in origin, where as Cupcakes are very much an American invention. Strangely enough they both make their first recorded appearance during the late 18th century. Quite impressive for the days before the worldwide web.
Fairy Cakes are usually smaller in size, being generally baked in a ‘Bun’ or ‘Patty’ tin, where as Cupcakes were traditionally made in cups, just as the name suggests. These days, however, they are usually cooked in a ‘Muffin’ tray.
It’s not just size that matters. Cupcakes are far more elaborately decorated than Fairy Cakes. Generally they are festooned with lashings of lightly whipped cream cheese topping or piled high with decadent buttercream icing. Fairy Cakes on the other hand, tend to be decorated with glace icing or have ‘butterfly wings’ held in place by a swirl of buttercream over a secret spoonful of jam.
As with all things, the devil is in the detail, the devil in this case is the cake. Fairy Cakes are baked using a Victoria or standard sponge mixture. Equal proportions of butter, sugar, flour and eggs are mixed together to create a light sponge. Cupcakes traditionally used the 1234 method, 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour with 4 eggs. Today, however Cupcakes can be made using any cake recipe that takes your fancy.
So there you have it, there really is more to these divine little cakes than their names.
With spring approaching why not try these beautiful Blood Orange or Sanguine Fairy Cakes, and yes they are Fairy Cakes.
Blood Orange Fairy Cakes
Ingredients
- 2 Blood Oranges
- 2 tsp Granulated Sugar
- 120g Margarine or Butter
- 120g Caster Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 120g Self Raising Flour
- 1 Pinch of Baking Powder
- ½ tbsp Milk
for the Butter Icing
- 100g Icing Sugar
- 50g Butter (Softened)
- Zest and 2tsp juice from the first blood Orange
- 1tsp Milk.
For the Glace Icing
- 2 tbsp Blood Orange Juice
- 200g Icing Sugar
Instructions
- Individually line a muffin or fairy cake tin with paper cases.
- Using a zesting tool or vegetable peeler pare off thin strips from one of the oranges.
- Then fine zest this orange and keep the fine zest to one side to use in the buttercream icing later.
- Combine the zest strips with the granulated sugar and leave to crystalize.
- Soften the margarine or butter and cream together with the caster sugar until pale, light and fluffy.
- Beat the eggs into the creamed mixture one at a time.
- Finely zest the other orange into the flour. Fold in the flour and orange zest together with the baking powder. Gently stir the milk into the cake mixture.
- Divide the mixture between the individually lined muffin or fairy cake tins, before bake in the centre of the oven until well risen and golden coloured. Allow five minutes for the cakes to cool in the muffin or fairy cake tin before transferring to a wire rack to completely cool.
- When totally cold the fairy cakes can be finished with blood orange glace icing, buttercream and sugared zest strips.
For the Buttercream Icing
- Place all the above ingredients into a bowl and cream until light and fluffy.
For the Glace Icing
- Mix the juice into the icing sugar to form a thick paste that is not too runny. Use a little more juice if it is too thick.
