Aren’t these cute?
I’m inviting Ozoz (The Kitchen Butterfly) and Heidi (Steps on the Journey) over for a virtual tea party. Oz because these are known here as butterfly cakes, and Heidi because our recent discussion inspired me to seek out this old-fashioned recipe, a staple of kids’ birthday parties alongside the fairy bread and chocolate crackles.
Butterfly cakes are usually vanilla flavoured, filled with cream and decorated with a little jam for colour, but I couldn’t resist this simple recipe from Trish Deseine’s Chocolate cookbook. The cake component is quite mildly flavoured, making it a perfect foil for the rich buttercream. Of course, you could easily adapt this technique to any cupcake recipe!
Cakes
- 125g (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
- 125g (40z) white sugar
- 3 large (59g) eggs
- 100g (3½ oz) plain (AP) flour
- 25g (1 oz) cocoa powder (sifted)
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder (sifted)
Butter cream
- 150g (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
- 250g (9 oz) icing sugar mixture (confectioner’s sugar)
- 40g (1½ oz) cocoa powder (sifted)
1. Preheat oven to 190C (375F) or 175C with fan (350F with fan). Line patty pans with paper cups.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until soft, then add the eggs one at a time and beat to incorporate. Add the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix well to combine.
3. Half fill the paper cups (mine took a heaped dessertspoon full each) and bake for about 15 minutes or until firm. The little cakes will be quite flat with a slightly domed top. Allow to cool completely.
4. To make the butter cream, stir the cocoa powder into two tablespoons of hot water to dissolve. In a mixing bowl, beat the dissolved cocoa powder, butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy, adding a little more hot water if necessary.
5. With a small sharp knife, carefully cut out a circle from the top of each cake, leaving a hollow dip on the top. Fill the hole with butter cream (I used a piping bag). Cut the removed circle into two halves, and position them in the butter cream at an angle to resemble butterfly wings. Now invite a few friends around for a tea party!
Click here for a printable version of this recipe
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 