Cake Tropicana

If your baking could do with a bit of brightening up (there’s only so much banana bread you can make), then these vibrant cupcakes will make you feel like you’re on your hols, even though you haven’t left the house in weeks. Taken from The Tropical Cookbook by Alix Carey (£10.99, Summersdale).

Flamia The Flamingo Cupcakes

Ingredients: (Makes 12)

For the vanilla cupcakes: ● 150g butter, softened ● 150g caster sugar ● 3 eggs ● 150g self-raising flour ● ¼tsp vanilla extract ● Pink gel food colouring For the buttercream: ● 200g butter, softened ● 400g icing sugar ● Pink gel food colouring ● Flamingo head and wings made from fondant

Method:

For the vanilla cupcakes:

1 Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a cupcake tray with 12 cupcake cases. Put the butter, sugar, eggs and flour in a large mixing bowl and beat together until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and two drops of pink gel food colouring, then mix through until well combined.

2 Fill each cupcake case with a heaped tbsp of batter, then bake in the oven for 20–25 mins, until springy to touch. Remove the tray from the oven and place the cupcakes on a wire rack to cool.

For the buttercream:

1 Blend the butter and icing sugar together until smooth, add a few drops of pink gel food colouring – enough to make the buttercream a tropical pink colour – and combine.

2 Fit a piping bag with a closed-star nozzle, transfer the mixture into the piping bag and pipe swirls of buttercream on top of the cupcakes.

3 To decorate, insert a fondant flamingo head and two fondant flamingo wings into the buttercream. These will last for 2-3 days in an airtight container kept somewhere cool.

Ikea have released the recipe for their iconic meatballs, so you can enjoy them at home. Now, if they could just tell us how to assemble our new Kolbjörn easily, too... Check out their Insta @ikeauk for the juicy details.