Ingredients

Cupcakes

  • 1 cup Plain Flour
  • 1 ¼ teaspoons Baking Powder
  • Pinch of Salt
  • 2 large Eggs, room temperature
  • ¾ cup Caster Sugar
  • 60 grams unsalted Butter, cubed
  • ½ cup Milk
  • 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
  • 1 ½ teaspoons Canola Oil

Frosting

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 5 cups icing sugar
  • ¼ cup heavy cream
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • Pinch of salt
  • Yellow, Orange and Green food colouring
  • Chocolate sprinkles (or chocolate button)

Method

Cupcakes

  1. Using a handheld beater, beat the eggs with sugar for 7 minutes. The mixture should have changed from yellow to white and tripled in volume
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
  3. Gradually add the flour mixture into the egg mixture, mixing for a short time on a low speed with each portion.
  4. Using a microwave or stovetop, heat milk with the butter until it melts.
  5. Mix some of the batter into the hot milk. This will bring down the temperature of the hot and lighten up the density of the hot milk, so it blends faster when added to the rest of the egg mixture.
  6. Slowly pour milk mixture back into whipped eggs while beating on the lowest speed. Scrape down sides of bowl, then mix for a further 10 seconds until batter is smooth.
  7. Fill cupcake liners with ¼ cup of batter. A levered ice cream scoop works well.
  8. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
  9. Rest for just 2 minutes to let them cool slightly, then remove from the muffin tin.
  10. Allow to cool before frosting.

Makes 12 cupcakes

Frosting

  1. Using a handheld mixer, beat the butter on medium speed for approximately 2 minutes, until creamy.
  2. Add all of the icing sugar, heavy cream and vanilla extract with mixer on low speed. Increase to high speed and beat for 3 minutes.
  3. Spoon ¾ cup of frosting into a separate bowl and stir in green food colouring for the leaves.
  4. Add yellow and orange colouring to the remaining frosting to create the desired sunflower colour.
  5. Fill a piping bag with sunflower coloured frosting. Pipe or spread a small circle of frosting in the centre of each cupcake and either sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles or apply a chocolate button.
  6. For the petals, start on the outer edge of the cupcake, piping small petals all the way around, Pipe additional layers closer to the centre until the top of the cupcake is covered.
  7. Use the green coloured frosting to add small leaves on the edges.
  8. Refrigerate cupcakes until ready to serve.