'Cute as a Button' Cupcakes (with edible buttons)

Eeee hello there! Today I made these super cute button topped cupcakes - with edible buttons! (How cool is that?!)

I think they would be perfect for parties, as a little gift or for just a bit of fun!

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If you'd like to make these adorable little cakes you will need;

FOR THE CAKES - (This cake recipe is my usual cupcake mix - I used it last time in my 'Whimsical Rainbow Cupcakes' post and the link to the recipe is on there. I will list everything you will need to mix and do on here for ease but just remember the original recipe is on that post! ^_^  ♥)

Anyway - for the cakes you will need;

- 110g Butter or Margarine (I used Stork)
- 110g Caster Sugar
- 100g Self Raising Flour
- 2 Eggs
- 2-3 Drops of Vanilla Extract


FOR DECORATION -
- 110g Unsalted Butter
- 500g Icing Sugar
- 1tsp Vanilla Extract
- A little bit of milk if you need it
- Pink Food Colouring (I use Pro Gel Rainbow Dust)
- Writing Icing
- Candy Melts! (I used blue and yellow candy melts but any colours of your choosing will look equally as cute - if you'd rather keep it simple you can also use just plain chocolate!)

And here we go! (Just remember that the original recipe for cake mix can be found in my 'Rainbow Cupcakes' post) Photo's will be posted alongside the steps to give you a vague idea of what it should - sort of - look like!

FOR THE CAKES -  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

1. First of all you'll need to preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. You can also at this point place you're baking cases into a cupcake tin. (I normally do this step right before the mix is completed, but its completely up to you!) 

2. Now you'll need to cream together the 110g of butter and 110g of caster sugar until the mixture is light, creamy and fluffy! Like this;

3. Once this step is done you'll need to beat the two eggs in a separate bowl and then add that to the mix. This should be done gradually. Once the eggs have been added then mix in either two or three drops of Vanilla Essence. 

<- You should have something that looks a little bit like this.














4. Now you'll need to sieve in the 110g of self raising flour. For this method I normally fold in the flour with a spatula as I know that way every bit of the of the flour will be added into the mix. (It also makes it a lot easier to use all of the cake mix when it comes to putting it into the baking cases as you don't waste any)

All mixed in and ready to go into the cupcake cases!















Step 5. Finally all that is left for the cupcakes is for them to be added into the baking cases! You can either do this in spoonfuls or by piping them in. I used to do the piping method as it did allow the mix to go in a lot neater however I just opt for adding the mix in spoonfuls now - purely for speed.

Here are my cupcakes before going into the oven. I used brightly coloured baking cases as I wanted every bit of the cake to stand out colour wise. However of course - the choice is up to you! ^_^








Step 6. Your cakes will need to go into the oven for around 15-20 minutes or until they are a nice golden colour. Normally my cakes are pretty much ready by 15 minutes, but sometimes I have needed to leave them in up until the 20 minute mark. Best advice is to just keep an eye on them and keep checking!

And that's your cake mix done! You should be left with some pretty yummy looking cakes - but they're not done yet! They need some decoration! 

FOR THE DECORATION - ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

1. What I did firstly for the decoration was to make the chocolate buttons. (This can be done while the cupcakes are cooling) For this step I used a silicone button mould that I purchased recently (from the Range) and the chocolate coloured candy melts in the colours blue and yellow. You can use normal chocolate if you'd rather or different colours!

These are the candy melts and my silicone button mould!

2. The next step is to then melt your chocolate - this step for me was a bit of a estimated guess as I didn't know how much chocolate would be needed for my silicone mould. It was a bit of a trial and error but my best advice would be start with small amounts of chocolate first. Its easier to start with a little and add more than to use too much and waste it! Unfortunately my camera lost charge at this point so I don't have any pictures of this step. Sorry :(

3. Once you've melted your chocolate and poured it as best you can into the mould you'll then need to leave it at room temperature for around 10 minutes, then put it in the fridge for however long you need.

4. Now it's time for the - dun dun dun - buttercream! For the buttercream I actually had the help of THIS recipe. What you need to do firstly is to add the 110g unsalted butter into a bowl and cream together until it is light and creamy. Like this; 

5. Then you'll want to add in the 500g of icing sugar and gradually sieve and beat it into the creamy butter. For this I also used a spatula, its my weapon of choice when it comes to anything that needs a thorough mix!

^ Above is how my buttercream looked after the addition of the icing sugar!

6. Add in the 1tsp of vanilla essence and mix well again. At this point you can also add a little bit of milk if you need too to help loosen your mixture. But if you don't consider your buttercream ready for some serious colouring!

^- And that is the kind of colouring I am talking about! How amazing does that look! 

7. Okay so for this step add in only a small amount of pink food colouring (you can add more if you need to) and mix this into your buttercream until you have a colour that you are happy with. When you are, its time to grab a piping bag and get ready for piping! 

Ready for battle - of the cake variety!

And here are how your cakes should look - or something similar! All colourful and fun!

8. Once your cakes have the buttercream on, its now time to get your chocolate buttons out of the fridge and very carefully popped out of the silicone mould. If there are any parts of the chocolate that are sticking out you can just carefully slice them off with a knife.

^ Above is a photo of me just taking my chocolate button out of the mould. And to the right is a photo of all of my lovely colourful chocolate buttons! (I was really excited at this point)












9. All that is left is to simply add to the buttercream with your chocolate buttons, place them anywhere you like and however many you want on each cake. Either way they will look super adorable.

To the left is some button ideas that I tried out just to see how they would turn out. The far left one is done simply by placing some normal cake sprinkles in the mould before I added the melted chocolate. It left me with a very funky polka dot button! The other button has the same sprinkle method for the spots, however I used some writing icing to give of the effect that its been sewn onto the cake! Cool huh?

And that's it! You should hopefully have some 'Cute as a button' cupcakes!

I am so happy with these cakes - they turned out better than I could have hoped! Thank you for taking the time to read and if you do make these adorable cakes please let me know as I would love to see them!

As always sorry if there were any spelling errors or confusing parts, this is my first ever post where I add my own instructions so I hope it was okay. Any advice or tips would be appreciated! But anyway, thank you for reading regardless!

Have a wonderful day and I hope to see you soon! ♥

Ricicle x

P.S. Just as a disclaimer I am in no way a professional baker, baking is just something I enjoy to do in my spare time. ^_^