Butterfly Cupcakes

Today is my 5yr old's Daisy Girl Scout Valentines Party and I offered to bring the cupcakes. I made these with my Vanilla Fairy Cakes recipe and then cut the tops off flat and halved the tops and dusted with confectioners sugar. I iced the cupcake and then placed the halves on top like wings.

This is a very Australian way to do cupcakes. The more traditional method is to cut a bit from the top of the cup cake and fill it with strawberry jam and then top with some whipped cream and put the "wings" on top of the cream and dust the whole thing with confectioners sugar. I jused to love that when I was a kid, but I find lots of kids don't like the strawberry jam, so I did it the quicker way with regular icing (confectioners sugar, water, one drop of food colouring).

Don't they just look like litte butterflys from the top?

Chunky Guacamole

I had a Tupperware party last night!! Don't laugh, it was a total blast, and cooks need Tupperware!! I'm getting a container that holds a 10lb bag of flour!!. There were about 16 of us and plenty of wine and some snacks. I made Ina ">Ina's Guacamole and served it with blue and yellow corn chips. I also made the Pan Fried Onion dip, which is essentially homemade French Onion. Also delicious.

4 ripe Haas avocados
3 tablespoons lemon juice
8 dashes of Tabasco sauce (it's really important to only do 8 - anymore and it's too much)
1/2 cup small diced red onion
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 medium tomato, seeded and small diced (I usually use 2, I think it makes it better)

What I usually do it prepare everything but the avocado and lemon juice, and put it in a bowl and mix it around.

Then you cut the avocados in half, remove the pits, and scoop the flesh out of their shells. Then I roughly chop the avocado and put it straight in the bowl with the other ingredients. With the avocado sitting on top, pour on the lemon juice and then gently mix it all in together.

Try and make it as close to the time you are going to serve it as possible, but if you have to make it ahead, cover the guacamole with plastic, putting the plastic directly on the guacamole and sealing to the sides of the bowl. This combined with the lemon juice will help stop it going brown. And then refrigerate until you want to serve it.