butterfly cupcakes and a sideboard

 A while back I pinned a picture of some cupcakes with cute strawberry butterflies on top.

Wednesday when I was getting fruit and veg I saw some strawberries for a reasonable price as the Qld ones come into season, so I bought some.
Yesterday, when was deciding what to make for morning tea, I thought some cute cupcakes with strawberries on them might be nice.

So I hunted up the picture and tried to get to the website to see how they made them and found that whoever pinned it pinned an image (don't you hate that!) and I was in too much of a hurry to go back and find said website. I ended up printing out the photo and played around with the strawberries to make some butterflies from how I thought they did in the photo.
After when I had a bit more time I found the website and the instructions and I wasn't too far off the mark.

 The recipe I used was one from my new Sweet Poison Quit Plan cookbook.

I made the cupcakes with GF flour and instead of their method, I melted the butter and stuck it all in to mix together, they turned out great.

My only reservation was that they tasted a little but Gluten Free - though no one else complained.
It may have been because I used vanilla powder rather than vanilla essence.
I find that sometimes, something with little flavouring, like a scone will taste like this but I have never found it in cakes before, most of the time you can't tell the difference, next time I will make sure I have some essence on hand or add extra vanilla powder- go here to find out how to make your own.

 I spread a little sugar free jam on top then I whipped up some cream and piped it onto the cake before adding the strawberry butterfly.

The kids were suitably impressed with the fancy cakes they got for morning tea.
After I finished photographing them of course!

The cake stand is one I made for "redeemed" from some mismatched plates and I put it out a couple of times at markets, it hadn't sold and loved it so much I decided to keep it instead!

I used some cute little ladybird liners that fit nicely into my beautiful copper patty cake tin that I stole inherited from my mum a good few years back, when I only had a couple of little ones.

I like to make the smaller cake size as I think the muffin tins most people use these days are just too big, especially for kids.

 
Before we get to the recipe I thought I should show you what I was photographing on.
 This gorgeous sideboard was a friend of mine's parents and as she had no where to put it she kindly gave it to me.

It has some water damage on the front and side, so I put it in the house until,
I have finished some other projects and have room to work on it,
I like having it where it will eventually end up, so I can decide how I am going to redeem it.

 I thought I may as well dress the top, this is what it usually looks like, minus the cupcakes on the cake plate of course!

I also have the extra large chalkboard here, I put it up by measuring another piece of furniture I thought was the same height as my sideboard before VCH had gone to collect the sideboard,
the only problem was that I didn't count on the little mirrored back.
I will fix it one day, if the chalkboard doesn't sell first.

   Fructose Free Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Butterflies

Ingredients:
120g butter (melted)
1C dextrose
2 t vanilla essence
2 eggs
2C self raising flour (I used gluten free)
1C milk

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C, line your tin with paper cases.
2. Place all ingredients into bowl of a mixer
3. Mix until well combined 1-2minutes
4. Place spoonfuls of batter into cases
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes until skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool on wire rack until ready to ice

You can just top with jam and whipped cream like I did (put a little dextrose and vanilla in the cream) or

you can make a conventional icing or substitute dextrose for icing sugar to make a butter cream icing.

To make the strawberry butterflies: remove stem from strawberry, slice strawberry into 4, cut the two middle pieces in half to form the wings and cut slivers from the side bits to form the body. 

Eat any leftover bits. 

You will get 2 butterflies from one strawberry.

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