Butterfly cupcakes & Little nutella-filled cakes

Most of the Saturday morning, I would laze longer in bed with my little baby actively awake and playing on his own with his toys. Seeing that I'm still sleeping, he would either climb over my body umpteen times, or pestering me to read a book to him, or just to wake up and play with him. This morning is not unusual, except that I took out the recipe book which i have left at my bedside table few days ago, and flipped through the pages with my little baby. Am I inspiring him to be a baker or chef? Nothing of the sort, though I will not object if he chose this path... then i can be celebrity baker/chef's mommy ;-)

The cute butterfly cupcakes caught my eyes. My little baby likes it too! After I told him that I'm going to bake it for him, he can't stop asking me for it and I've to explain to him that I can only do it in the afternoon. Okay, he got distracted for a while and start asking again. Finally got him to take his afternoon nap, and have time to start preparing to bake the cupcakes. The recipe is easy but before I could finish baking, my little baby woke up and started asking for butterfly cupcake again. He got impatient and asked me to seat him in the baby chair; that's his usual tea-time place. I've to rush through decorating one cupcake and immediately give it to him. He's that demanding! The only rewarding remark given by little baby on the cupcake is "very nice", and makes all efforts worthwhile! He had 2 butterfly cuppies ;-) I like the cupcake texture too, soft and smooth, when fresh out of the oven!

Butterfly Cupcakes
(Recipe adapted from Baking a Commonsense Guide)

Ingredients/ Method:
120g unsalted butter, softened
120g caster sugar (original recipe use 180g)
185g self-raising flour
125ml milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (original recipe did not add this)

1/4cup whipping cream. whipped
some strawberry jam
icing sugar, to dust

1) Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2) Beat egg, sugar, milk, butter and vanilla essence with electric beater. Add in flour and beat till mixture is smooth and pale.
3) Pour mixture into lined baking cups, 2/3 filled.
4) Bake for 30 mins. Transfer to wire rack to cool.
5) Cut shallow rounds from the centre of each cake using point of a sharp knife.
6) Spoon 2 tsp whipped cream into each cavity, top with some strawberry jam and position 2 halves of cake tops in the jam to resemble butterfly wings. Dust with icing sugar.

I used half of the above recipe to bake Little nutella-filled cakes. Pour batter into lined baking cups, 1/3 filled. Top with 1tsp nutella and cover with batter upto 2/3 of baking cup. I've greedily add too much nutella and T says it overwhelmed the cake.

Added lemon juice and zest to left-over whipped cream

to decorate the little nutella-filled cakes