Fairy Cakes

Fairy Cakes (Buns)

These can be left plain or topped with a white, lemon or any other preferred icing colour or flavour.

Ingredients

Makes 5 Buns	Icing - optional (see notes 1, 2 & 3)
50 gm self raising flour	200 gm icing sugar
60 gm caster sugar	1 tbspn water
50 gm unsalted butter	1 tbspn lemon juice (see note 2)
1 pinch salt	1/8 tspn yellow food colouring (see note 2)
1 tspn vanilla or ¾ tspn almond extract (or to taste) (see note 4)
1 medium egg

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 190° C.
Buns
Soften the butter.
Add the flour, sugar, butter, salt, vanilla (or almond) and the egg to a bowl and beat well until the mixture is smooth.
Put 5 fairy cake paper cases into a bun tin and, using a teaspoon, share the mixture evenly between the cases.
Icing - optional - (see notes 2 & 3)
In a bowl add the icing sugar, water, lemon juice and colouring and mix until smooth.
This produces ample icing to fully cover the 5 buns.

Cooking

Put the bun tin into the heated oven and bake for about 15 min, they should be a light golden colour (see pic).
Remove from the oven and set aside on a wire rack to cool.
When cool optionally add the icing to the top of the buns and set aside to allow the icing to set - putting them in the fridge will hasten the setting.

Notes

(1) These can be left plain if preferred that way.
(2) If adding icing, any preferred colour can be used or simply left white. If adding alternative flavouring, ensure that the total liquid used for the icing does not exceed 2 tbspn or it will be too runny. The icing can cover the top completely or just the middle of the bun. If flavouring extract or essence is used only a few drops (to taste) will be required.
(3) To ice the buns with different colours and flavours mix about 1 heaped tablespoon of icing sugar with just enough water to make a thick icing mix - be careful as it is very easy to make this too runny. Use about one teaspoon and place this in the centre of one of the buns. A couple of drops of colouring can be used (an eye-dropper is ideal for this) and a variety of colours can be used on the same or different buns. Just use your imagination. Coloured ‘sprinklies’ can also be used. Putting the iced buns in the refrigerator will hasten the setting of the icing. See the picture for some ideas, I am no expert but it's easy and I like the effect.
(4) You can also use 1 tspn vanilla together with ½ tspn almond flavouring.

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