Making cupcakes with children is just fantastic. I’ve yet to find a child that doesn’t love choosing the papercases (if you can’t find funky ones at your supermarket, take a look at our huge online range at www.cottagecooks.co.uk where they come in different shapes and sizes too!).  They’re easy and quick to make, with most being cooked within 20 minutes so not far off the instant gratification that smaller hands and tummys crave. Add to that some brightly coloured icing and sprinkles for decorating and you’ve hit kid cake paradise!

Annabel and I made these Mint Chocolate Cupcakes last weekend….thanks to my friend Anna from Nigella.com for providing the recipe for these in UK measurements. Originally taken from the book “500 Cupcakes”, these are a big hit with children and adults alike…..aero in cupcake form. Next week, we’re going to try to make them chocolate orange flavour…….!

INGREDIENTS
225g self raising flour                                   4 tbsp cocoa powder
1teaspoon baking powder                            225g caster sugar
4 large eggs                                                    1 teaspoon mint essence
100g plain chocolate chips                           225g unsalted butter, softened

and for the icing…….
120g unsalted butter, softened                    225 icing sugar
1 teaspoon mint essence                                green food colouring
100g plain choc chips (chocolate sprinkles or crumbled flake works well too)

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 160C (fan oven 150C). Ask your little helper to pop 18 paper cake cases in muffin tins.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into  a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl, beat together the flour and sugar until well combined - this is where you need the softened butter. Add the eggs in one at a time, beating together after each addition.

Gradually add the flour mixture, stirring all the time - it’s a good idea for one to stir and one to pour. Make sure all the lumps are stirred out then add in the mint essence and chocolate chips and give another stir. Spoon the mixture into the cake cases - about a dessertspoonful in each one and the adult cook should put them in the oven to bake for 20-25 minutes.

Whilst they’re cooking, tidy away all the utensils used so far and get on with making the icing. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the mint essence. Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the bowl then beat together well - I find it much easier to do this im my magimix but you need to be careful of kids fingers and sharp blades, obviously!  Add a little food colouring to turn the icing mint green.

Once the cupcakes are cooked, turn out onto a cooling rack for 10-15 minutes, then cover them with icing. No need for fancy piping a little angled palette knife does the job perfectly. Top with the choc chips whilst the icing is still wet (or they all fall off!). Sit back and enjoy.

Both of my girls love pizza but I hate buying the stuff from out of the freezer. Chloe makes a fabulous pizza base but time was short today and she was filthy from a day at the stables so whilst she was in the bath, Annabel and I made pizza for tea.

We cheated by buying pre-made bases and tomato topping….I normally make my topping with tomato puree and a little olive oil to thin it but Annabel finds it too tomatoey(!) so I opted for a jar of good quality bruschetta topping.  I had quite a few things going a bit limp in the fridge so Annabel made good use of a red pepper, some onions and tinned sweetcorn that we’d opened a couple of days ago. It also gave us chance to use up the remnants of slightly hard cheese that were festering in the fridge as well as a lovely ball of buffalo mozzarella.

So once I chopped the veggies up, the meal was all Annabel’s. She spread the bruschetta topping all over the pizza base, then sprinkled over the peppers and onions. I even had a problem stopping her eating all the raw pepper! A really good sprinkling of sweetcorn then lots of different cheeses over the top and it was ready to cook.

The pizza bases came in packs of 2 so I quickly blended 150g unsalted butter with 6 garlic cloves, spread it all over the base and hey presto…garlic bread as well! The pizza cooked for 15 minutes at 180c and was divine. The garlic bread was in for the same time but could have done with just 10 minutes.  The girls and I tucked in and there wasn’t a scrap remaining for the dogs!! An excellent meal by Annabel who will be 4 on Monday……..just goes to show that even from such an early age, you can get children cooking and eating good food.