I’m no purist. In fact I love the combo of home made and bought. As a kid I used to make those packet fairy cakes with little rice paper transfers of Mickey and Minnie to adorn the top. The bit you ate first of course. Now as a mother I never buy them. I worry about e numbers and other things Guardian readers like myself lose sleep over. So imagine my joy when I found these little Thomas beauties in my local cake decorating shop Sugar & Ice. It’s all about the credit/debit – homemade cakes plus bought sugary Thomas toppers = neutral snack. Kind of.
Ingredients (to make 6):
For cake:
- 1 egg weighed in the shell
- Caster sugar
- Stork margarine
- Self raising flour
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- The tiniest smidge of baking powder
For decorating:
- 100g icing sugar
- A tiny bit of boiling water
- A tiny bit of blue food colouring
- 6 x Thomas cake toppers
Preheat the oven to Gas 5. Line a fairy cake tin with some cases. As usual, this is my egg weighing sponge recipe. Just weigh the egg in the shell and then weigh out the flour, Stork and sugar each to the same weight. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and whizz up with a handheld electric mixer until the cake batter starts to look lighter in colour. Once it’s lighter only mix for another 2 minutes. Spoon into fairy cases using a teaspoon and your fingers. Bake in the centre of the oven for 15 – 20 minutes until well risen and golden. A toothpick should come out of the centre of the cake clean. Cool on a wire rack, removing from the tin as soon as your fingers can take the heat. They tend to go soggy if left to cool in the tin.
Make the icing up by popping about 1 tbsp boiling water and 1 tsp blue food colouring into a bowl. Then add the icing sugar until you get a thick and smooth icing. It might need a good beating with the spoon. I’ve learnt he hard way not to add the water after the icing sugar. A slip of the hand and you have to add a LOT more sugar to get a good thick icing.
Add a sugary cake topper of your choice to each cake and serve to small people.
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