Miss five has been asking for a while tom make some cupcakes, so this weekend, we did. I managed to talk her into putting some fruit in them, so at least they contribute to the 5 + a day. The fruit of choice… apricots (of the tinned variety). We based this on a Chelsea sugar recipe for peach muffins.
Ingredients:
Apricot cupcakes:
1 3/4 cup self-raising flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
125g butter, melted
2 free-range eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3/4 cup milk
can of apricots, well drained and chopped to ~1cm3
Butter icing:
100 g butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
milk
Food colouring
Instructions:
Apricot cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 180°C (356°F). Place cupcake liners into a 12 hole muffin pan. We made a few batches of mini muffins to freeze and add as a treat to lunch boxes.
Sift together dry ingredients in one bowl, and combine wet ingredients in another. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
Fill 12 cupcake liners with mixture and bake at 180°C (356°F) for 20 minutes or until cupcakes spring back when touched.
These cupcakes are great to eat just on their own and freeze well.
Butter icing:
Combine butter, icing sugar and food colouring in the food processor. Mix until combined. Add milk until the icing is of a good piping consistency. Pipe on top of the cupcakes using a star shaped piping tip.
What the kids can do:
Hand washing: Don’t forget to get the kids (and grownups too of course) to wash their hands before you start. Little hands always seem to end up touching everything, including the ingredients. This is extra important given the current Covid-19 situation. For good 20 second hand wash, have them sing “happy birthday to me” twice.
Eggs: Pro tip for breaking eggs with a 5 year old, break eggs into a separate glass bowl before adding to your other ingredients. That way you can see and pick out any bits of shell before they are added in by mistake. I like to use free range eggs, because it is kinder to the chickens, and they also taste better. Bear in mind that raw eggs can carry Salmonella so wash little hands if they end up the raw egg. I also don’t recommend eating raw cake batter, just in case.
Mixing the ingredients: My daughter (age 5) helped mix all the ingredients. the biggest messes seen to happen when sifting and mixing dry ingredients with the kids. A great tip from reader Dana M is to put a towel down underneath, which catches any stray ingredients for easy cleaning. When fold wet into dry ingredients, you want to mix thoroughly, but not too much or the cupcakes will go flat, this usually requires the grown up to either finish off the mixing and/or intervene before things are mixed too much.
Keeping Them Occupied 