Age of innocence inspired wedding cupcakes

Here as promised is the recipe for my Age of innocence inspired cupcakes. I've adapted these from Cupcakes from the primrose bakery, from the wedding section.
I thought that wedding cupcakes would be perfect as most of the conflict in the book was caused by marriages! Archers wedding to May, Countess Olenskas to the count. Generally marriage caused a whole lot of problems in the book. So enough with the waffling and on with the cooking.

Age of Innocence inspired cupcakes

1. 11og unsalted butter
2. 180g caster sugar
3. 2 lrge eggs
4. 125g self raising flour
5. 120g plain flour
6. 125ml milk at room temp
7. half tsp almond essence

for the icing

1. 115g unsalted butter
2. 60ml milk
3. 1 tsp vanilla extract
4. 500g icing sugar {i used fondant }
5. quarter tsp almond essence
6. flaked almonds to decorate

method for the cakes

pre heat the oven to 160'c\ 350'f\ gas mark 4. Although to be honest i just bung mine on a medium temperature as my ovens a brute and i just watch things in it very carefully.

1. Cream together the butter and the sugar with a wooden spoon, an electric whisk would be better but i don't have one so I'm going with the spoon. If doing it by hand really put some welly in it as the smoother you get it the better the cake.
2. Break one of the eggs into a cup and break it up a bit with a fork. Now add this to the butter mixture and mix it in. Do the same with the other egg.
3. Sift the two flours together in a bowl. Now put the milk in a jug and add the almond essence to it.
4. Add one third of the flour to the mixture, mix it in a bit and then add a third of the milk. Continue until all the flour and milk is Incorporated in the batter.
5. Spoon the mixture a third of the up into muffin cases carefully for a great sized cupcake. You should get 12 cupcakes from the mixture.
6. Bake in the oven for about 20 min. Check regularly and take out when golden and risen. Let the cupcakes cool on a rack whilst you make the icing.
7. To make the icing soften the butter in a bowl with the vanilla extract and milk. Add half of the sugar and beat until smooth. Add the rest of the sugar and keep beating. Using the fondant icing sugar here gives the icing a really glossy finish.
8. Finally add the almond essence. Taste the icing to see if the flavour is strong enough.
9. To ice the cupcakes take a blob of icing on a palate knife. smooth this on the cupcake adding more icing as necessary. to finish, sprinkle almonds on top to decorate.

my review for the age of innocence is here