Category: Food Diary

This has got to be the easiest and most fun thing for kids to do in the kitchen. The cake batter is so quick and easy to make which means the kids don’t get bored half way through leaving you to finish it off. The part I enjoy the most is watching the kids be creative with the different colour combinations of icing, decorations and cupcake pans they use.  Oh and they sure do taste amazing too!

Who doesn’t love a good cupcake?

I’ve made so many over the years I’ve lost count.  This classic butter cake base allows for any variation you can think of.  Try adding sprinkles to the batter before cooking, add a chocolate bud to the middle of the mix before baking or use food colouring if the vanilla colour just isn’t your thing.

The icing on the cake!

When it comes to icing the sky is the limit.  You can use butter, cream cheese, fondant, homemade or store bought and the cute candy, sugar and cholocate topping options these days are endless.

Here’s the recipe

Put the following ingredients into a large bowl and use the hand held mixer or mix master to blend the ingredients until the mix changes from a yellow colour to more white in colour.  Then evenly spoon the mix into the prepared cup cake pans of your choice. Bake for 20min on 180 degree oven.  Allow to cool completely before decorating.

• 90grams butter, softened
• half a teaspoon of vanilla essence
• half a cup of caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of self raising flour
• 2 tablespoons of milk

A few tips

1. The longer you beat the mixture, the yummier it is.  You want he mix to have basically turned white.
2. When the kids are decorating the cupcakes, place a towel on the bench to stop the sugar, sprinkles and other fun stuff rolling off the bench, onto the floor, onto the kids feet and travelling all through the house.
3. Let the kids do it from scratch and throw all the dirty dishes in the sink at the end. Obviously ensure an adult is supervising when it comes to hot ovens and electrical equipment.

Today I look two bananas out of the freezer and sat them on the bench to defrost before being added to a yummy vanilla cake.  Admittedly I was busy pottering about with other things and hadn’t realised that the bananas were completely defrosted and sitting in a pool of their own brown juice. Thinking nothing of the juice, I picked up the bananas carefully because they were so soft and mushy and cleaned the juice from the bench top.

Eeek!!! A big brown stain appeared.

There was a great whopping brown stain on the white stone bench top where the two bananas once laid.

I quickly grabbed the usual vinegar and bi-carbonate soda and vigorously rubbed the wet mix into the stain.  After trying this several times, I had barely made any head way on removing the stain.  So I made another lap around the house searching for a solution and ended up in the laundry with my hands on the Vanish.  It’s a granule powder stain remover for fabric, other brands sold in Australia are White King.

This is how I got rid of the stain!

I covered the stain area in warm water then sprinkled the fabric stain remover powder over the stain and began to massage the granules into the bench top.  I did this for about 2 min.  Then I left the solution sitting on the stained area for another 5 min and when I returned I was pleasantly surprised that the stain had been removed and there was no further marks left by the stain remover solution. Phew!

Mental note…

Never leave frozen bananas to defrost on your white stone bench top…ever. But if you do, I hope this helps you remove any unwanted banana juice stains from your bench top.

P.S Sorry I didn’t get a before photo to show you the horrid stain; I was too busy trying to remove it!