by Sue Watson
Take a bow!
Coffee Fairy Cakes
Inspired by nude espresso and naked baristas, these coffee fairy cakes will keep you up all night baby!
I know you love your coffee strong and hot – so here is my special recipe and there’s nothing fairylike about these cute little caffeine bombs. We’re not talking ‘a hint’ of coffee – we’re talking caffeine fix in a cake, which BTW will increase one’s metabolism, thus allowing more cake to be eaten. If you can’t take the pace and are looking for something more mellow put less coffee in the mix – you wimp!
My recipe makes 12 fairy cakes or 30 baby fairies. The mini versions are a sophisticated companion to enjoy with after dinner coffee (much like yourself Al). The big babies are great for coffee mornings, bake sales and random social gatherings of coffee enthusiasts and naked baristas. Chocolate covered coffee beans are a great little topper – but being a bad girl I like to sprinkle a little gold fairy cake dust and give it some bling.
Ingredients
110 g or 4 oz self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
110g or 4 oz softened butter
110g or 4 oz caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon of coffee granules dissolved in 1 tablespoon of hot water
Coffee Frosting
200g or 7 oz icing sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon of coffee granules dissolved in 1 tablespoon of hot water (add more or less to taste)
Chocolate-covered coffee beans or party glitter – both optional depending on your mood and who you’re baking for.
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180°c/350°f/Gas Mark 4 and fill a cake pan with paper cases. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the eggs, the caster sugar and the softened butter. Now completely dissolve a tablespoon of coffee granules in a tablespoon of very hot water. Add this to the other ingredients in the bowl and whisk until soft, creamy, coffee heaven emerges. I bet you can’t resist a little slurp. Delicious? Told you so. Now put the mixture into the paper cases. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes and make yourself a well-earned cup of coffee while allowing the scent of sweet coffee to permeate the air (multi-sensory coffee experience) while leafing through various celebrity mags.
Once out of the oven and slightly cooled, take the cakes from the tin and place on a cooling rack.
For the Coffee Frosting
When cakes are completely cooled, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and dissolve the coffee granules in hot water. Combine until the mixture forms a soft, thick paste. Taste the icing and if you want a stronger coffee flavour then ‘bring it on’ and add a dissolved teaspoon of granules. If you just can’t keep up and want less coffee taste, add more icing sugar and a little hot water. If the icing is too thick, add hot water and/or coffee to taste!
Now top the cakes using the back of a teaspoon or a knife. Eat the first one and make sure it’s all utterly gorgeous – you can still adjust icing accordingly. If you’re not sure – eat another one and keep this up until you know exactly what flavour you want.
If the icing thickens too much while you eat and ice, put the spoon or knife in hot water and continue.
Now make another cup of coffee and consume more coffee cakes for more multi-sensory coffee bliss.
Chocolate Chilli Fairy Cha Chas with Spangly Frills
These simple-to-make cheeky little fairies are lively, sweet and just a little bit spicy. The heat is in the buttercream, so if you are baking for children or don’t like chilli, just bake the cakes as directed and leave the chilli out of the buttercream…they are still cha chas, just a little more restrained.
Now before you begin just let your hips sway very slowly, feel that music and just let those Latin rhythms pulse through the body as you cha cha round the kitchen collecting the ingredients. Makes about 12 cakes.
Ingredients
2 free range eggs
110g or 4 oz caster sugar
110g or 4 oz self raising flour
110g or 4 oz butter, melted
½ tablespoon cocoa powder
12 red metallic paper cases (they remind me of strappy scarlet dancing shoes).
Chilli buttercream
70g or 2 ½ oz butter, softened
140g or 5 oz icing sugar
25g or 1 oz cocoa
1-2 tablespoons milk
¼ level teaspoon chilli (or to taste)
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ tablespoon milk
Red sparkly bits and edible red glitter
Method
Cha cha over to the oven and turn it to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and fill cake tins with paper cases.
Now whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy – all the time swaying those hips and taking little cha cha steps (it improves the texture, trust me). Slow down the tempo now and fold in the flour, cocoa and melted butter.
Spoon mixture into scarlet stilettos (or paper cases) and bake for 20-25 minutes until springy to the touch.
For the Frosting
When the cakes have chilled out on their wire rack – they will be ready for their dancing dresses.
Beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. Add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add the remaining icing sugar, chilli and cinnamon and the milk and beat the mixture until creamy and smooth. Check the taste and add a little more chilli if you fancy something hot, hot, hot and beat in extra milk, if necessary, to loosen the mixture.
Now top those cha cha fairies and throw on some red sparkles and bling, take a big chocolate chilli bite and dance the night away.
English Rose Fairy Cakes
These fragrant fairies are perfect with a cup (china of course dear) of Earl Grey tea and a Jane Austin novel. You will recall we baked these for the ‘Fashionista Afternoon Tea’ and they went down very well, albeit some of the skinnier ubermodels munched only on rose petals and avoided the calorific cake. So if baking these for fashionistas I would recommend baby cakes because a whole one would be far, far too much! This recipe makes about 12 standard size cakes.
Ingredients
115g or 4 oz butter
115g or 4 oz caster sugar
2 free range eggs
115g or 4 oz self raising flour
1 tablespoon rose water
12 pretty pink paper cases
Rose Icing
200g or 7 oz icing sugar
4 tablespoons rose water
Frosted Petals
12 freshly plucked rose petals
1 egg white
1 tablespoon caster sugar
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180°c/350°f/Gas Mark 4 and fill a cake pan with 12 large paper cases – or 24 small ones (if fashionistas or little girls are coming to tea). Now beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time and keep beating. Now sift the flour and fold it into the mixture using that lightness of touch you are famed for! Open the rosewater and stop and smell the roses for a minute ah…that’s better. Now stir in the rosewater and put the heavenly scented batter into the fairy cases and pop into the oven for about 20 minutes until golden and springy to the touch.
As the cakes bake, filling the kitchen with divine fragrance, imagine you’re in a rose garden and pluck petals from a (preferably pink) rose and brush each rose petal with the egg white, covering it completely, but lightly (don’t soak it.*) Now with a fragrant flourish, sprinkle with caster sugar and leave to dry.
NB* I find garden roses are great for crystallizing but tend to wrinkle more than bought, cut roses so be very light with the egg white.
For the icing
Once the cakes are cooled, begin on the icing. Mix the sugar and rose water together to form a thick paste and add the tiniest drop of pink food colouring (to match the rose petal colour or perhaps a little lighter). Apply icing to the cooled cakes and top with a sugared rose petal. Dig out your best china, place exquisite rose-topped fairy on the china, mak
e a pot of pale golden Earl Grey and enjoy a little Jane Austen under a willow tree in the garden.
Cranberry and White Chocolate Christmas Fairies
These sweet little fairies are so easy to make you’ll be able to whip up a batch between Christmas shopping and festive partying. I know you don’t like anything too tarty – therefore the white chocolate icing counteracts the tartness of the dried cranberries. This delicious but not-too-sweet treat is perfect to serve with sherry when the gay swimming team arrive unexpectedly after a vigorous Boxing Day breast stroke down the cocktail lane. Makes about 12-14 cakes.
Ingredients
150g or 5 oz self raising flour
150g or 5 oz butter, softened
3 free range eggs
150g or 5 oz caster sugar
2 tablespoons milk
Several drops of vanilla extract
75g or 2 ½ oz dried cranberries
12 gold paper cases
For the Icing
60g or 2 oz white chocolate, chopped
Edible gold stars and glitter
Method
Set the oven to 180°C/350°f/Gas Mark 4 and first sift the flour into a large bowl from a great height. Then add all the ingredients and beat until smooth…and that’s it! Yes it’s as easy as that. Don’t forget to stir in the cranberries! Now divide the mixture between 12 gold cases, and bake in the centre of the oven for 18-20 mins, or until the cakes have risen and are just firm to the touch and springy. While this festive fairy feast is baking, pour a glass of egg nog and find some hymns on the iPlayer.
Take the cakes from the oven and transfer them to a wire rack to cool.
For the Topping
When the cakes are cool, simply melt the white chocolate in a heat proof bowl over a simmering pan of water – or if in a real rush in the microwave. When melted, spoon the white chocolate onto the Christmas Fairies and bling it with some edible gold stars and glitter. Serve to hungry boys.
About the Author
Sue Watson was born in Manchester long ago and after attending Manchester Polytechnic and hanging around the Hacienda for far too long, moved to London to seek fame and fortune. She found neither, but had a wonderful time working as a journalist on tabloid newspapers and women’s magazines.
Moving into television, Sue became a producer with the BBC and worked on garden makeovers, kitchen takeovers and daytime sofas – all the time making copious notes so that one day she might escape to the country and turn it all into a book.
She still has the notes and now writes novels in Worcestershire, where she lives with husband Nick, daughter Eve, two cats and a rather glamorous goldfish.