Dani Aneka

With such a passion for cooking and spending most of my evenings unwinding as I make dinner, surprisingly baking isn’t something I turn my hand to as much. So given that it was a colleague’s birthday in the office last week, I decided to give cupcakes a go for the first time in years!
Following Nigella Lawson’s classic cupcake recipe, I quite simple threw all of the ingredients into the bowl and whisked them up. Basically the rule is to use equal parts of self-raising flour to caster sugar and butter along with 2-3 eggs, a splash of milk and a generous few drops of vanilla extract.

Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until golden brown and leave to cool before adding the icing. I opted for buttercream icing sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, some pink edible crystals and little individual flowers. I even made a few slices of fairy bread with the left over hundreds and thousands – a funny traditional Aussie birthday treat of buttered white bread topped with sprinkles!

I was chuffed with my creation and everyone at work was impressed with my baking skills. I’ve always seen baking as more of a science, but once you know the basics there is room to experiment and get creative with different recipes. I look forward to making another batch of these soon and having a play with alternative flavours and maybe even trying to formulate my own healthier mix using natural sugars and plant based milk.