Baking with Kids: Butterfly Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe

Nick Jr Easter Pack

We enjoy baking, it is always a lot of fun making cakes and eating afterwards!

I have previously shared my Top 5 Tips for Baking with Kids, baking is a great way to spend quality time with children.

Nick Jr sent us an Easter pack with a selection of items including a brand new Nick Jr colouring book, Nick Jr chef’s hat and silicone cupcake cases.

Crack the egg into a small bowl

Little man was very excited when we received the pack and he couldn’t wait to be one of Dora’s Little Cooks.

We adapted the recipe below found at Nick Jr website to make our butterfly cupcakes.

Mini Chocolate Cupcakes Recipe (makes 8)

Pour egg into big bowl

Ingredients:

• 110g soft butter
• 110g caster sugar
• 80g plain flour
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1tsp baking powder
• 1 medium egg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 3 tbsp fromage frais
• 8 raspberries.

Mixing the cupcake mixture

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4

Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat it until it goes pale and feels lighter.

Put the flour in a sieve and shake it gently over the bowl until it has all fallen through.

Sift the cocoa and baking powder into the bowl in the same way.

Crack the egg into a small bowl. Make sure no bits of shell fall in. Pour into the big bowl.

Measure out a teaspoon of vanilla essence, then mix everything together.

Heart Shaped Chocolate Cupcakes

Place the cases on a baking tray and spoon a little of the mixture into each one.

Bake the cake for around 15-20 minutes or until they have risen.

Place the cupcakes on a Dora serving plate, top with a blob of framage frais and a raspberry.

You could also use another fruit on the top such as a strawberry or cut the cupcake in half and sandwich with a little raspberry jam.

As the heart-shaped silicone cases were a bit bigger than the cases in the recipe, we doubled the recipe, so there was enough mix for 12 cases.

Butterfly Cupcakes

Butterfly Cupcakes

I always wanted to make butterfly cupcakes, so it was a perfect opportunity to try and make some.

Once the cakes are completely cool, use a small pointed knife to cut a circle around 2.5cm width out of the cake leaving a cavity in the centre.

Butterfly Cupcakes

Cut the round in half and set aside. Now fill the centre of the cake with your filling of choice, we used raspberry jam in the middle.

Return the two pieces of cake to sit on top like butterfly wings. We add a drizzle of chocolate buttercream.

Dust with icing sugar to serve and Enjoy!

You can make vanilla and chocolate mix into butterfly cupcakes. Next time, we will be trying vanilla cupcakes instead.

Butterfly Cupcakes

You can choose any filling for your cupcakes. Next time we will try some vanilla buttercream with a dash of raspberry jam on top.

The butterfly cupcakes are extremely easy to make and we all loved the final result: cute little cakes shaped like butterfly wings.

They certainly flew off the plate!

Thank you very much Nick Jr for our lovely Easter pack! 🙂

The Easter pack was provided free of charge, however I was under no obligation to write this post. The opinions expressed in this review are honest and my own.

Top 5 Tips for Baking with Kids #BakingWeek

This week from 15^th to 21^st October is National Baking Week. Little man and I love baking (and eating what we bale), so it’s just one more excuse to go to the kitchen and put our aprons on!

Baking is a lovely therapy. I enjoy baking, putting the ingredients together and then tasting what was produced. Sometimes it might not come out as expected, but it is usually great fun!

Little man loves helping out in the kitchen from a young age. Baking is a great way of spending quality time together, practice counting and colours too while dealing with the ingredients.

We will be doing lots of baking over the next few weeks, it’s National Baking Week now, it will be half term soon and then it’s Halloween.

So here are my top 5 tips for baking with children:

Tip 1: Simple Recipes

Simple recipes do not tend to go wrong, so they are great when baking with kids as you don’t need to be an expert chef to get them right. Flapjack is something I usually bake when little man asks to bake at short notice and we don’t have much time to spare.

I have recently baked Fruity Flapjacks Bites with little man and he had a great time. It only needs a few ingredients and it is easily to combine them together. It is also baked quite quickly, so you don’t need to wait too long to enjoy it.

Tip 2: Pre-Measured Ingredients

Measuring ingredients before letting the children in the kitchen works too. In case you have older children, they could measure it themselves using a weight scale or cup measurement.

However I have noticed that pre-measuring ingredients works quite well with younger children that can’t wait to get started. You can just have them ready in small bowls, so it is easy to mix them together.

I have recently baked Banana and Chocolate Mini-Muffins and the ingredients are easily to be measured. You don’t need a weight scale, so you might want to try it.

Tip 3: Ready Cake Mix

Baking from scratch is best, but it doesn’t hurt to use boxes of ready cake mix. Usually you only need to add eggs, mix it and put it in the oven.

It’s quite simple to use, so it is a success with younger cooks. It is also great for mums as you don’t need to worry about measuring and getting the ingredients right, just get it out of the box and it is all there for you.

You can add extra ingredients to a cake mix, such as flavouring, chocolate chip and raisins. You could turn your plain cake mix into a delicious cake without much work.

Tip 4: Simple Toppings

Once the cake is ready, the best part is the topping! I tend to use melted chocolate and little marshmallow with my little boy. It is very simple to make, you only need to put the chocolate chunks in the microwave for a short while and it is delicious!

You could have a mixture of white chocolate and milk chocolate toppings. They both go down very well in our household.

Tip 5: Have Fun

It’s the last tip, but it should be the first one. Have lots of fun while baking with your children. They enjoy it so much, it’s a great experience and bonding time for parents and their smile at the end is priceless!

If you can think of other tips for baking with kids, please add in the comments!

Happy Baking!

Enjoy National Baking Week and we shall keep you updated of our Halloween creations!