vanilla (kinda) yin yang cupcakes

I had a good think about the type of cake I should make for this book. Angel's cakes in the book are all spectacular affairs, and I've never actually decorated a cake before so there was no way that mine would be that good.I did think that I should have some innate talent in the area as my mum used to make the most amazing birthday cakes when me and my brothers were little. Two of her crowning achievements were a cake in the shape of a horses head for one of my birthdays and a optimus prime cake that she once made for my brother. I've been asking for a remake of this cake for quite a few birthdays now but it hasn't materialised so far.My mum used to decorate these cakes with butter cream icing, she never piped them in one long line but she did individual tiny blobs on the cake in each colour as she thought it looked neater.This reminded me of the next problem, I don't own a piping bag. I can't even attempt such a feat without a piping bag. The final hurdle in my way was the fact that I haven't been able to cook a large cake in my oven as it's a fossil and brute of a oven.It doesn't hold a steady temperature but just seems to get really hot no matter how low you have it and burns the outside of things whilst the middles still raw. So it had to be cupcakes again, this still fits into the story as Angel always serves cupcakes to her customers whilst discussing what type of cake they want.So far so good, but I had to decorate them in some way. I hit my baking and cupcake books with a passion, but there were too many awesome looking cakes to pick one. All googly headed I sat down and thought about the book again, I then remembered that Angel made a cake in a red and green ying yang shape for one of her customers perfect.All I needed to do was make some plain buns and put some of that ready to use coloured icing cut into shape on top.Next problem, I couldn't find any in the right colours. I ended up buying some food colouring and adding it to normal icing, hence the atrocities in the above picture.The food colouring makes the icing runnier and impossible to control, hence the indistinct lines.My boyfriend saw these and laughed he's tits off, asking who's kids I'd been entertaining. He also said that I couldn't possibly put a photo of them on my blog but I've defied him thinking that it's good for a laugh. Besides they tasted good even if they do look incredibly amature. The recipe was a Rachel Allen one from her Rachel's food for living book and you make them like so.

vanilla cupcakes

pre heat the oven to 200'c and line a twelve hole bun tin with papers

ingredients

for the cupcake mixture

75ml milk

25g butter

75g flour

1\2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

2 medium eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

125g caster sugar

Heat the milk in a saucepan till it just comes to the boil. Then take it off the heat and add the butter. Leave it to the side for now.

Beat the eggs and the vanilla together until fluffy, gradually add the sugar until the mixture goes thick.

Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into the mixture gradually, then add the milk.

Stop beating as soon as it,s incorporated. The mixture looked really sloppy at this point, but don't worry it still comes out as cakes.

spoon into the paper cases and bake in the oven for about 15 minuetsor until risen and golden on top.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

for the icing

100g icing sugar

1-2 tblsp single cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix the ingredients together. If like me you add food colouring be very careful.

Ice the buns when cool and remember that even if people laugh at how they look that they're still going to eat them because they taste so good.