How to make the perfect fairy cakes and the common mistakes to avoid

Quick, easy and delicious - master queen or fairy cakes with our top tips

Fairy cakes are the easiest cake to make and one of the most delicious.

Possibly the easiest cake to master, and therefore the most important, fairy cakes are ready to eat in under half an hour, are satisfied with a drizzle of icing or none at all, and are the perfect way to bake with your children without letting stress ruin the whole endeavour. 

The biggest difference between a fairy cake and a cupcake is size. Cupcakes are towered high with buttercream icing, whereas fairy cakes are a smaller cake, with far less icing.

A fairy cake can be cut in two and sandwiched with cream and jam to make mini Victoria sponges, or made into butterfly cakes with jam and buttercream. 

They may be easy to make, but there are still some common issues that almost every baker has come up against in their fairy cake baking career. Here are the problems, and how to solve them. 

My fairy cakes are really dense

The probable cause of this cake disaster is that your oven is set too high. When the cake cooks too quickly on the outside it can create an extremely dense interior.

Why are my fairy cakes not rising? 

This could be down to a lack of raising agent - or even old self-raising flour where the raising agent has become less effective. It also could be because you beat the air out of the mixture when you added the flour. Quick and gentle is the key to perfectly risen fairy cakes.

My buns are sticking to the paper cases

Sticky buns usually come when the cakes were cooled in the tin, causing moisture to build up around the freshly baked sponge. 

My fairy cakes are dry

This could be because the cakes are overcooked (did you cook them for longer than the recipe indicated) or the mixture did not have enough moisture. When baking, use large eggs unless another size is specified. 

Vanilla fairy cakes

recipe by:Darina Allen

A childhood classic and the perfect recipe to get kids started in the kitchen, these fairy cakes have a soft, velvety and irresistible crumb

Servings

18

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 20 mins

Total Time

 30 mins

Course

 Baking

Ingredients

• 150g (5ozs) butter (at room temperature)

• 150g (5ozs) caster sugar

• 150g (5ozs) self-raising flour

• 2 large eggs

• 2 tbsp milk

• ½ tsp pure vanilla extract

• Icing (optional):

• 225g (8oz) icing sugar

• 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

• 1 tbsp water

Method

1. Prepare two muffin tins lined with 18 muffin cases

2. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Put all ingredients except milk into a food processer, whizz until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add milk and whizz again. Divide mixture evenly between cases in the muffin tin.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until risen and golden.

4. To make the icing, sieve the sugar into and add the lemon juice and sugar until it reaches spreadable consistency.