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

[Maddi]

Thanks for the recipe! Now that I'm all "organized," I can put this to good use. ;)

Maddi <3

[Wendy Wager]

You CAN get patterns for cakes! I have "20 Knitted Cakes" and "Knitted Fast Food" Anyone for knitted pizza? Also, must recommend "Flutterby Patch" blog. True, it's mainly knitting, but has wonderful flower and garden pictures and the knitted toys are sooo cute and pretty. I'm making Jack and Jill at the moment. It's life-enhancing, just like your blog and she has Attic24 on her favourites list. Your last 2 posts wonderful as ever. x

[Kitty Kat]

Hi Lucy, these DO look like little yummy butterflies! i vote butterfly cakes!

[Pati]

Hello Lucy! Thanks for the recipe. I have 6 girlfriends coming for a coffee morning tomorrow and will cook the cakes for them. Yum, yum!! Have never properly looked at the icing sugar packet and never noticed the tractor!! It shows how busy our brains can be... Thanks! xxx Pati from sunny London

[Sandi Lee]

Oh my so many comments on your little cakies, down here in Australia we call them...Butterfly or Fairy Cakes and fill the hole with jam and whipped cream, oh yummy, yummy. I haven't found a good receipe yet so am going to try yours, brings back some tummy satisfying memories, thank you. I love all things English, there is a certain charm about it all. Gosh I love your blog.
Sandi

[PinkCat]

Definitely butterfly cakes! I must admit I find them so much more charming than cupcakes. Cupcakes are SO last year! x

[Anne]

Oh dear -- that should read "been here 38 years" LOL!!!

Reading this I'd wonder how someone could be here 3 years and then retire LOL!!!

[Victoria]

Well, everyone has beat me to it - but yes, jam under the buttercream. Yum, yum.

And I am from the north (grew up nr Clitheroe in the Ribble Valley) and we always called them butterfly cakes.

I'm inspired to make some of those right now if I have enough butter in the house.....
x

[lizp]

Lovely looking cakes - brng back happy memories of baking wth Mum!

Sugar beet is indeed the source of sugar grown in the UK . Huge fields of it are grown in Suffolk and it is porcesed in the Silver Spoon factory in Bury St Edmunds - you can always sell when they are boiling!

[Anne]

My hubby walks by and sees your blog - fairy cakes he cries? You've never made me fairy cakes LOL!!!

Of course, I will be making fairy cakes later today.......

He's looking at your attic pictures and trying to figure out where you are (he's from Saltburn....always wanted to live out in the Dales area but there were no jobs of course -- that's how he ended up in Canada -- been here 3 years now and has just retired..........

[Nina - Tabiboo]

We call them fairy cakes - I'm not too sure if that's because we're Southern, but wings torn off first, then the insides licked out and the cakey bit devoured last - delish!

much love,

Nina xxxxxxxxx

[dreaming of a country home]

THANKS FOR SHARING THIS SUPER DELICIOUS RECIPE!

DEBBIE MOSS

[Claudia]

Hei, Lucy!
Here in Brazil, we call it "Butterfly wings cake" as well!! but I guess "fairy" or "angels" are great names as well, cause they have all the same intention (and sweetness), don´t they?! :)

[Jennifer]

we call them butterfly cakes!

would LOVE to try them but better not xxx

[Emma]

I'm from the north too - and those are definitely butterfly cakes. Fairy cakes don't have wings (and are any sort of small cake). These were a staple of parties when I was small (if you weren't clever like my friend's mum who made crinolined lady cakes with a plastic lady stuck into the iced skirt).

Emma

[ruth marie]

They're also nice if you make them with some cocoa added in the sponge mix for a chocolatey twist with the addition of a little coffee buttercream in with some chopped walnuts sprinkled a top but these may not suit the children (it just means that there are more for the grown ups to enjoy!)

[Sam]

Hi. Thank you for clearing up the 'butterfly cake' issue. I have been very frustrated recently when trying to find a 'fairy cake' recipe to find butterfly cakes instead. A fairy cake is just a little sponge in a cake case. Don't get me started on 'cupcakes'.

Also, I went to my LYS or rather sewing shop to get some of the Stylecraft stuff (I buy because it is cheap to practise on) and there were huge holes where the purple, blue, green etc shades were. Oh, Attic 24 strikes again. It was great to see as I was sure no-one ever bought wool in that particular shop. Thanks for bringing colour to the world.

[Louise]

I'm from the North (Bradford area) and have always called them butterfly buns. I've never heard them called angel cakes.

Thansk for sharing the recipe. My grandma used to make these for us when my sister and I were kids

[Sarah Jones]

i live in North Wales and we have always called them butterfly cakes ~~ i make them in muffin cases so they are a bit bigger and also put some jam in them before putting butter icing. Very naughty but very yummy. xxx

[maggie]

Lovely to be asked how to do something isn't it, (and I am from the North by the way and always knew them as butterfly buns) but sad that people don't know how to make them. Suppose it's a generational thing, since all my friends of my age would know how to make them.

[JuliaB]

I haven't made these in years as my two daughters don't like buttercream. When I was young, sometimes we used to make top hat cakes, ie. we didn't cut the top of the cake into wings but stuck it on at a jaunty angle and then put a glace cherry or smartie in the buttercream icing alongside. I'm making fairy cakes for my youngest's birthday party today so I might just be tempted to make a few butterfly/top hat cakes too. BTW, I am extremely envious of your Connievan. Can't wait to see it Attic 24'd!

[Rohaise]

I remember making these at one of my first home economics lessons at school (about a quarter of a century ago!). Very yummy indeed. And they are definitely called butterfly cakes (well, in the West Country anyway.) I think it's time I made them again.....

[amanda makes]

Well that made my mouth water Lucy. Do you think it's ok to eat cake at 9.30am? Somehow it just seems wrong! One of the things I love about you is your delight in the simple things! I hadn't even noticed the little red tractor, but you're right. It's dead cute! Lots of love, Amanda xxx p.s. I'm still waiting for my Granny Stripe yarn to arrive. I can hardly bear it! maybe today. x

[Ren]

Hi Lucy

Yes indeed they are called Fairy Cakes here in Australia. All kids (and grown ups alike) love them.

Thanks again for such a beautiful blog !!!

[Krawuggl]

You safed my weekend baking for this week, have to try your recipe in any case, sounds and looks so very tempting. I always love recipe from 'real' people, they are tested and mostly very very good, while books are often disappointing, there is always something written there which does not be right, be it the measures or the time of cooking or the heat recommandation for the oven, or or or.
Oh, and my neat ripple blanket is coming along so very nicely, every day during the usual house routines I always look forward the evening when I finally could sit down and add another colour. Such a fantastic pattern, thanks again so much for it!