Butterfly Fairy Cakes Recipe

An absolute classic from my childhood, these pretty butterfly cakes adorned the buffet table at every child’s birthday party in the 1970s and 80s. Before anyone had heard of cupcakes. You can miss out the jam-and-sprinkles stage in this butterfly fairy cakes recipe and simply dust with icing sugar, if you like.

No little ones I know, though, can resist sprinkles, and they do give the butterflies colour. I used white glimmer sugar and 100s and 1000s for mine (pictured). You could use Christmas sprinkles, black at Halloween to resemble bats, or pink to look like fairy wings – there are plenty of possibilities with this butterfly cake recipe.

To make things easy, I used ready made icing in this recipe for butterfly cakes. UK kids’ birthday parties on the 1980s – when I grew up – featured as much artificial colour and flavour as possible. As well as a massive sugar overdose for each and every one of us. In my parenting experience so far, 21st century children are no different. You can of course make your own icing if you’d like to – there’s a good basic buttercream recipe here.

The use of self-raising flour in this fairy cake recipe means there’s no need to measure out one tsp baking powder – or any quantity. I find baking margarine mixes more easily, but butter gives a slightly better flavour – it’s your call! My mum and gran always used plain old granulated rather than caster sugar in all their cake recipes, and I do the same.

Makes about 12 – or a ‘baker’s dozen’ – fairy butterfly cakes

Butterfly fairy cake recipe ingredients

• Granulated or caster sugar, 150g
• Self-raising flour, 150g
• Baking margarine or butter, 150g, cubed
• Eggs, 3
• Vanilla extract, 1 tsp
• Salt, a pinch
• Vanilla icing, 1 tub
• Apricot jam, about 2-3 tsp
• Sprinkles, to decorate

Equipment

• Food processor
• Fairy cake cases
• Cupcake tin
• Metal skewer
• Wire rack
• Sharp knife

How to make Butterfly Cakes

• Add all the cake ingredients to your food processor and process for about 15 seconds until smooth, or according to your machine’s instructions.
• Divide the mixture between 12 fairy cake cases, placed inside a 12-hole cupcakes tin. Bake in the oven, pre-heated to 160C (fan), for about 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into each comes out clean. After about 5 minutes, remove the cakes from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
• Once the fairy cakes are cool, use a sharp knife to carve a circle out from the top of each. Cut each circle in half to create the butterfly buns, as pictured here.

• Fill each circle with a heaped teaspoon of icing. Warm the jam in the microwave for a few seconds, then use brush a thin layer of jam onto each ‘wing’.
• Roll the jam-side of the ‘wing’ in the sprinkles, then stick them onto the top of the iced cake, as pictured. They should then resemble butterfly wings, as per the name!

Related recipes:

• Children’s biscuit recipe
• Old school chocolate cake
• Cherry cake
• Retro sprinkle traybake
• Simple chocolate brownies

Note –  This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy via these, I may earn a small fee. This has absolutely no effect on the price you pay. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.