Little Cakes with Wings

Remember my post last week when I showed you some little fancy-pants cakes that I'd baked for my solo knit-and-natter at home? I had lots of requests for the pattern recipe (sorry, I've just been pootling about on Ravelry and my mind is on crochet patterns, although I do quite like the thought of a baking pattern!), ho hum, I've distracted myself now, where was I?? Oh yes, lots of requests for the recipe for these little winged cakes.

Not sure what to call them, J and I had a little debate about this last week actually. He tells me that in The North they are called angel cakes. And I then told him that in The South, we always called them butterfly cakes. And then to confuse things even more, my little baking recipe booklet refers to them as fairy cakes. So either way, whether you like your cakey wings to belong to fairies, angels or butterflies, the recipe is one and the same.

First you make a batch of little buns. I have an old faithful recipe which I always use, you can find it waaaaay back in my archives (March 2008, good lord, have I been gas bagging on here THAT long?)...click HERE to find it. This recipe makes eight cakes. 

 

You need to let the cakes cool completely before you start chopping them about or else it all goes hideously wrong so be patient ok? No crumbly disasters and no kitchen hissy fits.

So while you're waiting for the cakelets to cool, you can make your buttercream icing. Very easy thing to do :: into a bowl put 50g butter or margarine and 100g icing sugar.

Get jiggy with your spoon of choice and cream them together until lovely and smooth. If you're using butter and it's not very soft, cream it first before adding in the sugar.

Beat in a few drops of vanilla essence.

Now you need to get your little cakey to produce some wings. Take a sharp pointy knife and cut out a circle from the top of the cake. Put your knife in at an angle as you cut round so that you end up cutting out a shallowish disc shape rather than trying to gouge out a deep round hole, does this make sense??

Don't worry if it's not particularly neat, a rough circle shape will do fine.

Now cut your circle in half to form the two wings, then fill in the hole with a good dollop of buttercream icing.

Arrange your little wings on top of the icing with the straight sides pointing down and the roundy edges sticking up (took me an embarrassingly long time to get this right, I kept wanting to put the wings in upsidedown)

And the final touch (which I completely adore) is to dust lightly with some icing sugar. Ahhhhhhhh it is such a huge amount of fun to dust cakes!! They look so charming and pretty and so much more cakey when they've had a good dusting down!

And thats pretty much it, this recipe should provide you with some fun baking and some even more fun eating. They are just the right amount of sweetness.

My Little People love these cakes. Mind you, they are quite cruel to the angels/fairies/butterflies and pull their wings clean off before scooping out the icing with their Little Fingers. Then they wipe their sticky Little Fingers all down their clothes, the dirty little urchins. I hope you won't do that, these pretty little cakies do deserve to be eaten daintily me thinks.

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ps I do love the Silver Spoon icing sugar packet, don't you? The dinky little red tractor with it's union jack window, ploughing up sugar pink fields is very sweet indeed.

Edited to add ::: ooooooooommmmmmmmmm JAM under the buttercream you say????? Well I never, I am SO going to try this, the Little Peeps will be beside themselves :o)xx

Also am rather delighted that I shall need to put J straight on the butterfly/angel debate as these are clearly Butterfly cakes aren't they? I was right, wasn't I?? teehee! xx

Comments

[Clare]

My mum always used to make us butterfly cakes, she must have made so many batches for fetes and birthday party over the years, thank for reminding me of these lovely little cakes. I to like the comment about have started reading your blog archive, it's a wonderful place to escape to. xxx

[Rachel]

I know I'm about 2 years late but from indulgent time to time I catch up on your posts as I'm fairly newish to your blog.....yes, butterfly cakes (Southern England here) and dirty urchins??? I haven't heard that since I was one. Awww. Takes me back.

[dining room table]

What a very creative idea! Cupcakes are quite boring if you don't put something so fancy on it.

[Dot]

love your blog, I follow it all the time and it has given me the inspiration to start chrocheting again after many years, I hope you don't mind I have metioned you in my blog and put you in my list of favourite blogs , keep up the good work. My blog called dotties dolls I make and sell online rag dolls and dolls clothes.

[Ann Kelsey]

Hi Lucy, I have made the fairy cakes hundreds of times over the years, my children used to love them. I now lookforward to making some some for my grandchildren when they are old enough :o) xx

[Renee]

Lucy, I would love to try your recipes. They all sound lovely. I have one problem, I don't know how to convert the metric measurements into US measurements. Do you have any conversions?

[FLOR GALANTE]

Lucy, I cooked the little cakes with wings, now the name is "ATTIC CUPCAKES"
They are nice. My family like them mery much.
THANKS

[Elaine Susan Howard]

Can't even spell my own name, it's Elaine. My Grandfather is from Lancashire also, maybe that's where we got the name from.

[Elaine Susan Howard]

Hello my name is Elane, I am from Australia also, Queensland, but we called them Butterfly Cakes. Whatever they are called, they are absolutely yummy. Thanks for the memories.

[mens jeans]

I love cake. But Could not prepare it properly. This inspire me make it proper.

[mammafairy]

sugar beet is used to grow British sugar!

So no tropical cane here!
We always called them fairy cakes if the tops were left alone, and, yes we put the tops back with the round edge down and broad side up like butterfly wings to call them butterfly buns
I often put a spot of jam under the butter cream too.

[Denise]

Hi- up here in Scotland they were called 'Fairy Cakes' but you are not allowed to call them that now because it is not pc!

[Lisa]

Definitely FAIRY cakes... and I'm from the North! The jam sounds a yummy additon too, though yours look great!

[Sandra]

Hi Lucy, to make your cakes even sparklier you could sprinkle a wee bit of silver or gold Sparkle Dust - even makes nappy changes magical...!

[Jenni at Baa-me Kniits]

I remember fairy cakes filled with jam and cream....so nice!

[Fiona]

Well I'm from up north and we always called them butterfly buns. Mmm,might have to make some as my pregnant appetite is growing daily! x

[Tigger]

Yeah, we call them butterfly cakes - they're always lovely to make and eat. sprinkles are nice over the wings & even choc buttons - endless variations and fun! Ta. Tigger

[Claudia]

We always call them Butterfly Wings and I add a few drops (just very few)of strong coffee (Nescafé) to the butter and icing sugar. We love this flavour! They are a must in our family with every celebration! No exception allowed!

[Anna]

I think they're definitely butterfly cakes! That's what we used to call them in the little pocket of northern NSW, Australia where I grew up, at least :-)

And I get confused the other way round - I used to cook a whole lot more than hook or stitch, so it's taken me a while to start calling patterns patterns and not recipes! (I still do it sometimes, especially when I'm sleep deprived.) I hope you're feeling better soon.

[Aurora]

I have been reading your wonderful blog awhile now. Thank you for always brightening my days!

I have always called these fairy or butterfly cakes. This is kind of serendipitous, I have really wanted to bake these the last few weeks but haven't had time to look for a recipe. These are surely the prettiest morsels ever (take that cupcakes!).

[Ronnie Pearce]

Thanks for reminding me of these little cakes i haven't eaten for a very long time. Need to introduce my babies to them. In Aussie i always knew them as butterfly cakes but my hubby from NZ calls them Queen cakes

[annabella]

Dear Lycy,
i am following you blog for quile a while now and adore what you are doing - managing a family, especially with a very little one, crotcheting, caravaning - you made me learn crotchet, and one of my very lucky moments was, when you posted a comment to one of my flickr (bella.anna) pictures. Iam blogging myself for about half a year now, and i would love to invite you to my blog. if you are interested, i need your email, cause the blog is only for friends and family ...
whish you all the best, and thanks again for making me learn crotchet!
annabella

[Darion St. Jacques]

I absolutely love your blog! I just recently came across it the other day, I don't quite remember how but I'm glad I did. You're an extremely creative person. And the pictures you have on here of England makes me So excited to go over there, I've never been there but I've convinced myself I love it. I'm from boring Alberta, Canada so pretty much any other place then here has interested me, but England is definately the top place I want to visit. But anyways I don't want to take up a massive amount of your comment space. But feel free to email me, I would really like to know more about England :) Btw I'm a girl haha sometimes people think my name is a guy's name.

[Eli Kristin]

Wow, what an amazing blog! Love your photos and blankets and all the gorgeous stuff you make!!! You're truly a creative person, love the colours too :D

Have a wonderful weekend!

[Carol Juniper]

I used to love making fairy or butterfly cakes with children when I worked in playgroups - they are so easy and the kids were always proud of their efforts. As far as I know we don't grow sugar cane in England - our home produced sugar comes from sugar beet which looks like a large turnip or swede. I think it's the same as the beet fed to horses or cattle as well.