Still, the recipe has endured, and it's really very easy to remember- I can make it off by heart now, as can my sister Nikki. It makes approximately 12-16 cupcakes depending on how generous you are with the batter and the quantities can be doubled to make a Victoria sponge or 30 cupcakes if you like.
A lot of people balk when I say that the recipe uses margarine instead of butter- do not fear!!- The margarine is lighter than butter and has less saturated fat which gives the cakes a melt-in-your-mouth ethereal quality. I promise you will never taste a lighter or fluffier cake. I have always used Flora (just the normal stuff) but I know Nikki has used supermarket own brand marg before and had perfect results.
You can either make these in a food processor, in which case you will have a perfect bowl of cake batter in literally 5 minutes- just add the ingredients in the same order as below, processing and scraping round the edges with each addition, or you can do it by hand using a spoon, or with a hand mixer which takes a few minutes longer but works just as well.
Either way, make sure you scrape the bowl and lick the spoon once its empty, it’s the best bit!
Ingredients
- 4oz/ 200gms self raising flour
- 4oz margarine
- 4oz caster sugar (don’t use granulated it just doesn’t work)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract/ essence
- If you would rather make chocolate cakes replace 1-1.5oz flour with cocoa powder
- Cupcake cases
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C, or175 degrees C if you have a fan oven, or gas mark 5-6 if you have a gas oven.
- Get a baking tray ready and lay out your cupcake cases. You can either use a tray with hollows for the cakes to sit in like those used for Yorkshire puddings, in which case just use one case for each cake, or if you’re using a flat baking tray double up on the cake cases to avoid spillages- I have ended up with a big cake puddle in the past!
- In a large bowl cream together the caster sugar and margarine until pale and fluffy, this will take a few minutes, start slow until they’re well incorporated or the sugar will go everywhere, you can beat harder once there’s no loose sugar in the bowl.
- Add the eggs one by one, beating hard, don’t worry if it starts to look a bit like curdling at this point once the flour’s in it will all be ok.
- Fold in the flour using a big metal spoon. Do this in a figure of eight, running the spoon around the edge of the bowl occasionally until it looks well mixed and smooth. This is the part where you are getting lots of air in to the mixture so don’t be tempted to beat the batter or over mix it or your cakes will sink and go soggy during baking.
- Fold in the vanilla essence and divide the mixture between the cases. I would suggest 1 ½ tsps of mixture for each case so you don’t end up with giant hefalumps of cakes. You may need to fill 12 cases then bake a batch before retrieving the tray and putting the other four into bake- this is fine the batter will keep ok for ½ hour. If you’re using two trays and baking the cakes on separate shelves in the oven, be aware that those higher up will cook faster, you may need to rotate them halfway through cooking.
- Bake for 12-15mins until golden and springy to touch. If in doubt, poke a knife into a cake (you will just have to eat this one yourself) - it will come out clean if it’s cooked. If not give them a few more minutes.
- Cool on a wire rack and ice with buttercream icing or icing sugar (made up according to instructions on the packet) and sprinkle with your choice of decorations while still wet.
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