This little piggy

Sometime I just like to bake to make someone smile.

There is a girl at my work called Laura who has to be one of the sweetest, nicest people there. She has always been really lovely to me, even though she doesn’t know me very well.

One Friday a group of work colleagues went over to visit little micro pigs that were visiting our offices and unfortunately she wasn’t able to make it because she was to busy with work. This sucked because she was really looking forward to it and is a big animal lover.

I decided I wanted to cheer her up and see if I could make her smile. If she couldn’t go and see the piggy’s, I would bring them to her in cupcake form.

Laura’s Micro Pig Cupcakes

Cupcakes

Ingredients  

• 175g softened butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 175g self-raising flour
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 eggs

 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170 C
2. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and mix until light and fluffy.
3. Pour in the vanilla essence and add the eggs and mix again to make a yellow batter.
4. Add the flour and mix until it is smooth. The longer mixing time enables air to get into the mixture which will make it lighter.
5. Pour the batter into the cupcake cases.
6. Bake for about 14 minutes. Keep an eye on them. They will be perfect when they bounce back to the touch and the top still looks slightly sticky. This will ensure they keep their moisture.
7. Leave on a cooling rack for 30 minutes or until cool.

 Frosting

Ingredients 

• 1/2 cup strawberry puree
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, nearly at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Add the strawberry puree to a small saucepan. Heat mixture over medium-low heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally until reduced by about 2/3. Should take about 10 - 14 minutes
2. Pour reduced puree into a small bowl and leave to cool.
3. In a bowl mix butter until pale and fluffy.
4. Mix in 1 cup powdered sugar, then blend in the reduced strawberry puree and vanilla extract
5. Add remaining 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and continue to mix until frosting is pale and fluffy, adding in an additional 1/4 cup powdered sugar if needed to reach desired consistency.

To decorate as little piggy’s like mine get red jelly beans for the ears, chocolate drops for the eyes and I got Percy pig noses to use as, you guessed it, the noses.

Layer on the icing when the cupcakes are completely cooled. You will need a decent amount of icing for your decoration to stay on and then just assemble to resemble little piggy's like below.

Unfortunately at the time I was making them I wasn’t aware she was vegan (rookie mistake) but I know she appreciated the thought and I know the rest of the team enjoyed them in her honour.

Give them a try. Cute, pretty easy to make, sweet and really tasty.