I am not a big fan of cupcakes. I won’t say no if I’m offered one but I won’t go out of my way to eat them either. I always find them heavy, sickly and overly sweet. I am a big fan of the ‘bun’ (as they were always called in my house) or fairy cakes.
The general rules of baking suggest you should have all the ingredients listed in a recipe and follow the instructions exactly. My mum on the other hand has always essentially told me to wing it…and that’s exactly how I made these beauties.I’d had a bit of a craving for something sweet and decided buns would be the easiest thing to do. Venturing to the kitchen I found I didn’t have some of the ingredients I needed – but that wasn’t going to stop me!
What you need (or what I used):
- 100g Kerrygold Spreadable and Olive Oil (you couldn’t taste it)
- 175g golden caster sugar
- 150g Doves Farm Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of Xanthan gum
- 1 beaten egg
- 1 teaspoon of rosewater (I much prefer using this to vanilla)
- 100g low fat probiotic yoghurt
- Handful of dried cranberries
- Handful of white chocolate chips
What I did:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees - less if you have a fan oven.
- Cream the sugar and spreadable together by hand – but you could do all of this in a mixer.
- Slowly add the egg to make sure it totally combines.
- Add the rosewater.
- Add the flour and Xanthan gum to the mixture and fully combine.
- Add the yoghurt spoonful by spoonful – you might not need as much as 100g or you might need more. You should end up with a fairly stiff batter.
- Stir in the cranberries and chocolate.
- Line a bun tin with cake cases and add a good soup spoon worth of batter to each (you can always top up if you have a bit extra).
- Pop in the oven for about 15 minutes – you might need to cook them for a bit less – test them by putting a skewer in and when you pull it out it should be clean.
- Take out of the tin and leave to cool.
Once the buns had cooled they formed a lovely crunchy top while being really light and fluffy. I may not have had enough eggs for what I was originally planning – but using the yoghurt made a very tasty set of cakes!
What kind of ingredients do you tend to substitute when there isn’t enough of what you need?
