These little beauties come from Nigella Lawson’s book “Feasts”. They’re a bit ridiculous; they look spectacular and appear to have had effort put into making them, but it’s all a lie. They’re incredibly easy to make and decorate.

All the cupcake ingredients are simply whizzed up in a food processor, all at once and produce the fluffiest sponge. You would expect this method to produce a dense sponge but it’s the opposite; perfect and aerated like a cloud. While the icing takes a little more effort, it’s hardly a chore.

I recommend you make these for the ones you love this Valentines season, but I would lie and say you went to more effort than you actually did. However, being dishonest during the season of love may not be the best advice…

For more in depth instructions, please click here for the original recipe: https://www.nigella.com/recipes/love-buns

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 caster sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoon baking powder

2-3 tablespoons milk, room temperature

Topping

2 large egg whites

1/2 cup golden syrup

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

decorations of your choice

Method

Place all the ingredients, apart from the milk. Blitz until combined and slowly dribble in the milk until the batter is smooth.

Spoon this mixture into a lined cupcake tin. You’ll think you won’t have enough mixture to fill you pan but don’t worry, there is 2 eggs and raising agent in here. You also want a relatively flat topped cupcake to ice.

Bake for 12-15 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius, until the cupcakes are golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack and cool in the tin for 10 minutes, before removing them and letting them to cool completely on the wire rack.

To prepare the topping, place all the ingredients in a bowl, excluding the vanilla. Place this bowl over a barely simmering pot of water to create a double boiler. Whisk this mixture until stiff peaks appear. This should take 5 minutes or so.

Remove from the heat, add the vanilla and whisk until combined. The mixture will still be a little warm when you go to ice the cupcakes, so don’t freak out about putting a warm mixture onto a cooled cupcake. All will be well.

Pile this mixture onto your cupcakes and go at it with the decorations. You can decorate these as elegant or as gaudy as you choose, I opted to go gaudy  ’tis the season after all.

Make these for your Valentine, or screw that idea, and make them for yourself instead. Just you, bed and your love bun…

Yak x