By foffer1, Sep 8 2017 08:00AM

For me, the cake inside is just as important as how the finished iced cake looks outside. Sure, I want people to say "wow" when they see it, but I also want them to say "Mmmm" when they taste it. I think, for me, who came to cake decorating by way of a love of baking, it is such an important element. Hence, why I will not use packet mix or buy in long life sponges.
Baking from scratch is a skill. Over the years, I have tried and tested many recipes, sometimes I still have to tweak things. It's incredible that if you change a brand of something, it can alter how your cake turns out!
But keeping it simple, I do believe anyone can do it. So here's a recipe it's hard to make a mess up of:
Cupcakes (makes 12 muffin sized cupcakes)
Weigh 4 large eggs (I use fresh free range eggs delivered by my "egg man" who it's possible I have a slight crush on, as he leaves me amazing eggs on my doorstep every week and who wouldn't like that!).
Now, weigh out all ingredients to the same amount. (So, if your eggs weigh 200g, weigh out 200g of everything else).
Caster Sugar
Self-Raising Flour
Butter or margarine
Add flavouring. I use ground vanilla beans for my vanilla sponges but a teaspoon of extract is fine.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 160C. As all ovens are different, I'm not going to give you a time. But, I'd say, after roughly 20 mins, start checking those cakes. Don't open your oven, just look through the window. Check the colour and rise, you should know when they are ready. YOu'll defnitely be able to smell them!
Remember, when you are paying for a cake, that you are paying not only for these ingredients but for the skills of the baker who creates your cake.
