Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

I baked these for a third birthday party last month. The recipe is one that has become a favourite of mine, and that honestly seems to work just as well with either butter or sunflower spread. Unusually, the kids finish them in their entirety - rather than just licking off the icing and discarding the cake beneath.

The recipe is based on Marguerite Patten's recipe for sponge cake, which has never failed for me, whether at Victoria Sponge size or tiny fairy cake size. You can't really see from the picture, but the cupcake cases have fire engines on the side - I tried to make bright red icing to go on top, but it tasted bitter, so I reverted to a pale orange instead.

Recipe and Method

Cakes (about 8 fairy cakes or 6 medium cupcakes)

Weigh the egg

Use same weight of sunflower spread and caster sugar, then cream together

Sift 1 tbsp cocoa powder then make up to the weight of the egg with self-raising flour

Beat the egg into the creamed spread and sugar, then mix in the cocoa and flour

Mix in the zest of 1 orange

Divide equally into cupcake cases and bake at 180 C for 8-12 mins, depending on size. They're done when a skewer comes out cleanly

Icing

25g sunflower spread

100 icing sugar

Juice of 1 orange

Beat the sunflower spread well, then stir in the (sieved) icing sugar, using a little orange juice to bring it all together. You shouldn't need more than a couple of tablespoons or orange juice. Makes enough icing to cover the tops of the cakes (as in my photo). If you want swirling icing then you'll need to double the quantity.

For larger quantities, just weigh the eggs and use that weight for all the other ingredients.

Recipe Evolution

This way of making sponge cakes using the weight of the eggs to determine the weight of the other ingredients was designed for use with old-fashioned balancing scales, so you could use the egg(s) as a counterweight for the other ingredients. It works brilliantly with digital scales, as you can be really accurate with the weights.

Weightwatchers

If you make 6 cakes per egg then these have 5 propoints each (using the recipe builder on the website), if you make 8 per egg then they have 4 propoints each

Spotty Cakes

I made these cakes at the weekend at the request from the 3-year-old. They are based on some he saw in an article in a cbeebies magazine - the Mr Tumble themed issue. (for those who don't know who Mr Tumble is - he's a character in a current children's TV programme called Something Special, and pretty much everything in his show is spotty).

I used my dairy-free version of Marguerite Patten's sponge cake recipe: weigh the eggs, then use equal amounts of Pure sunflower spread, flour and caster sugar. I also added 1 tsp of vanilla essence per egg. The spots in the picture are mini-smarties, so I made the 1-year-old some 'starry' cakes, with fruit stars instead of smarties.

The 3-year-old and 1-year-old were very happy with them, even if they mainly licked off the icing and the spots/stars. As for me and the partner - we weren't as impressed unfortunately - vanilla fairy cakes just don't taste the same without butter. They looked good though, and made the kids very happy.

I've been experimenting with dairy-free cooking for well over a year now but I've not yet made any recipes simultaneously with butter and an alternative, so I've resolved to do just that the next time I do some baking.