Happy Birthday to The Queen Bee News!! (and a recipe for Little Ray of Sunshine Cupcakes)

Happy birthday to my little outlet!! Can you believe it's been two years!? I know!

To celebrate, I thought I'd let you in on my little secret recipe for a sure fire way to warm up even the hardest of hearts or the coldest of feet after a long late autumn hike. These taste just like pure sunshine. I promise.

Note: a fantastic UK/US Imperial/Metric converter for recipes can be found here.

For the cupcakes:

225g or 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
225g or 1 cup caster sugar
225g or 2 cups self-raising flour (or add 1 tsp baking soda if you don't have self-raising)
1tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

For the Frosting:
115 g or 1/2 cup unsalted butter
225 g or 2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp orange essence OR 1 tbsp orange zest
Food colouring -- orange and yellow
Coloured sugar
Jelly Beans, gum drops or other candies of your choice!

1) Turn on a suitably sunshiny day record for singalong fun eg Vampire Weekend, The Shins, The Noisettes, Hot Chip etc or anything just a little bit Motown (it's just impossible to be sad with a "doo wop doo wop" in the background). AT ALL COST avoid the likes of Bon Iver, Elliott Smith or Nick Drake.
2) Now that you're happily singing along let's make some cupcakes! Turn the oven on to 170 C / 350 F and line your muffin tin with 18 cupcake cases.
3) Combine all the cupcake ingredients in a large bowl and beat with an electric whisk until smooth and pale, about 2 to 3 minutes. Spoon the batter into the cases, filling them just over half full.
4) Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean when you prick the centre of cake!
5) Boogie down while wiping up and getting on with the fun part, the icing!

1) Prepare the icing by beating the butter, icing sugar and orange essence (or zest) until smooth. Divide into two bowls.
2) Add a tiny amount of food colouring to each bowl and beat until mixed well. I urge you to start of with the smallest amount you can manage -- you can always add more to go darker, but you can't go back to pale! I use a toothpick and gel based food colourings.
3) Here's the fun part. Allow the cupcakes to cool on a rack for at least 15 minutes or so. The frosting will melt if you put it on too soon. Be patient! Do a little dance, make a little love, take the dog for a walk, organize your jelly beans -- anything to resist the urge.
4) Finally, once cooled the decoration can begin! Spread the frosting on the cupcakes, finish with coloured sugar and jelly beans! Get creative, if the flavour of sunshine doesn't cheer you up, decorating these little beauties definitely will!!

Got a thing for chocolate? Want to try a variation of this recipe? Go Chocolate Orange!
Using the exact same cupcake recipe, add 4 tbsp of cocoa powder to the mix and substitute 1 tsp of orange essence for the vanilla and 1 1/2 tbsp grated orange zest. Once mixed add 100 g or 3 1/2 oz of plain dark chocolate chips. Oh yeah (read with my very best Barry White voice).

For the frosting, we're going full on Chocolate Butter Cream:
100 g (3 1/2 oz) of chopped plain chocolate (I find 70% works best -- try Green & Blacks or the co-op for those of you in the UK)
2 tbsp double cream
50 g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
100 g (1 cup) icing sugar

1) Put the chocolate, cream, butter in a small sauce pan over low heat. Stir gently until combined -- DO NOT let it go to the boil. (Chocolate does funny things)
2) Remove from the heat and stir in the icing sugar until the mixture is smooth. Swirl onto cupcakes and top with orange coloured sugar and a slice from a Terry's chocolate orange. Bon appetit!