butterfly cakes | with jam + whipped cream

Mum’s butterfly cakes sat in pride of place at every birthday party we ever had growing up. I have lots of memories making these too when I’d go out to Mim and Pa’s farm in the school holidays. My job was always to line the muffin tins with the patty cases and as the years went on, I graduated to being able to cut the lids out of the cakes!

The patty cake recipe below was given to me by a very good family friend of ours, Liv Betts. Liv is a lovely cook and I’m grateful to her for sharing her recipe. I’m very much looking forward to catching up with her over a glass of wine tonight (she’s in town for my sister’s Royal Wedding party tomorrow).

I made these butterfly cakes for morning tea this morning as we had a journalist from the local paper come out to our place to take a snap of the girls and I. We got so caught up with chatting and taking photos that the pot of tea went cold and Nikki didn’t even get a chance to sit down and enjoy a cupcake. I sent her back to the office with some though so hopefully they went down well at smoko.

If you haven’t made these before, give them a go. They look very impressive but more importantly taste so good. I absolutely love anything with freshly whipped cream and strawberry jam.

A good special treat!

butterfly cakes (makes 18 cupcakes)

250 grams of butter, softened
1 x cup of castor sugar
3 x eggs
1/2 a cup of milk
1 x teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 x cups of self raising flour, sifted
to serve
150ml of thickened cream
1 x teaspoon of icing sugar, sifted
A small drop of vanilla extract
Strawberry jam
Fresh strawberries

• Preheat the oven to 170℃ and line 2 muffin trays with approximately 18 patty cake cases. (The number will vary depending on the size of your patty cases).
• Beat the butter and sugar in a mix master until pale and creamy.
• Add the eggs, one at a time and the vanilla.
• Add the sifted flour, alternatively with the milk and combine well.
• Using two teaspoons, (one to scoop the mixture up in and the other to scrap the mixture out of it), scoop the mixture in to the patty cases.
• Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until lightly golden on top. (Make sure you keep a close eye on them as you don’t want them to burn).
• While the cupcakes are cooling, using a hand mixer – beat the cream, icing sugar and vanilla until it’s nicely whipped and holds together well.
• Using the pictures below as a guide – cut a hole out of the top of the cupcake using a sharp knife. Then, cut this piece in to two halves.
• Spoon some jam in to the hole, add a dollop of cream and then place the two halves of cake on top so that they’re sticking up.
• Sift some icing sugar over the top and add a slice of fresh strawberry.

Lo’s tips

• I soften the butter in the microwave.
• I have a large jar of castor sugar in my pantry with a vanilla bean pod in it. This flavours the sugar- turning it in to the most gorgeous vanilla’ie goodness. It lasts forever – you just keep topping the sugar up when required. If I use this sugar, I don’t add the extra vanilla.
• If you don’t own a little sifter like the one pictured below, grab one at the shops. They are so handy when sprinkling icing sugar over cakes.

If you make these butterfly cakes, please leave your comments below. xx

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