Baking cupcakes for ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS!

Today I tried my hand at baking some salted caramel cupcakes that my mr has been eyeing up in Sainsburys... I guess something you should know about me is that I am not a cook, nor a baker sadly. These talents require multi-tasking and your full attention and in all honesty I'm far too easily distracted by my phone, the tv, a song, my cat, another half finished task in a different room... The list goes on and on! 

Back to the point for this tangent, whilst perusing the baking aisle in Sainsburys we see the cake mix boxes and I think, surely this is the answer! Takes less than half an hour and most of the tricky work and individual ingredients are already in the box!

So I happily unpack the box at home, and armed with my butter, whisk and a solitary egg I begin my cupcake war... Ahem... I mean challenge.

So part one goes pretty well, mixing the cake mix with the egg and 3 tbsn's of cold water, I even managed a decent consistency with a normal whisk and not the electric one that the box says to use! 

I may have looked a little silly mixing it all in my saucepan but I actually forgot that I don't own a mixing bowl! (This is how much I don't bake!!) 

Once the mixture is evenly spread into their little cupcake holders I popped them into the pre-heated oven for 10-15 mins. 

Out pops the cutest little plain cupcakes, nicely risen and smelling so good!
 

Now it was time to figure out how on earth I was going to measure out 120 grams of unsalted butter for the icing when I don't own kitchen scales.... Well, in truth there's no trick, I guessed and then speedily jumped on amazon to order some cheap kitchen scales to advert this crisis in future! (Incase you're wondering, I also ordered a mixing bowl and a piping bag and nozzles!)

Guessing the butter wasn't too hard, 1kg tub of butter halved, then split that half into five rough sections in my head and cut out one of those sections and added a smidge more to make it 120 grams... Lol lets hope you will all be much more prepared than myself!

I had to use my hands to soften the butter and then mash up the icing mix and butter to form a paste before whisking until it was light and fluffy! 

I used a normal knife to paste on the icing/buttercream type thing and it went pretty well. They look scrummy already! 

Then I mixed the glaze powder provided with a tsp of boiling water and mixed to get the drizzle and dripped that and the little chunks to add decoration and aid in the sugar coma! 

The end result? 

Even with nearly all the tools missing or wrong I still managed to knock up a pretty yummy set of 6 cupcakes for the cheerful price of £1.60! 

Clearly my obsession with watching The Great British Bake Off is inspiring me, I think I'm going to order some cheap-ish baking supplies and actually attempt non-packet cupcakes next! 

Happy Sunday! 

L xxx