2. Visit the local farm shop and purchase three free range eggs (or six for twice as many cupcakes!)
3. Purchase 6oz of butter, but do be careful with the selection as the posher butters are invariably wrapped in mixed materials packaging rather than paper – stick to something like Sainsbury’s basics for simple paper wrapping.
4. 6oz of sugar – Tate & Lyle may not be organic or raw cane sugar, but it does come in a paper bag.
5. 6oz of self-raising flour – more opportunities for going organic here as pretty much all flour remains available in a traditional paper packet.
6. A vanilla pod (should come in its own skin, no packaging required; well, theoretically).
7. Drop in to Co-op for some of their lovely fairtrade dark chocolate. 100g should do the job.
8. 1 tsp of baking powder. Now this is the tricky part. I haven’t yet sourced baking powder without the plastic packaging, but there’s no law that says baking powder must be used – try it without and they’re still pretty good.
9. 1 tbsp milk (preferably delivered by the local milkman in a traditional glass bottle).
10. In a glass bowl, melt together half the butter and all of the chocolate. Put to one side.
11. Mix together the rest of the ingredients (just a few seeds from the vanilla pod, not the whole thing!). Ideally an electric whizzer would be used here, but to be completely plastic free it could be done by hand. Hard work and serious elbow grease required, but it is possible. However, as I already own some plastic whizzers, I admit to not being dedicated enough to complete this particular task by hand just yet.
12. Mix in the melted chocolate and butter.
13. Spread cupcake moulds out on baking tray and spoon mixture into them.
14. Bake at 180 degrees for approximately 20 minutes.
15. Guilt free eating pleasure.
Just to say Yeo Valley organic butter is wrapped in silver foil with a greaseproof paper lining, which separate from each other in hot water, e.g. leftover washing up water.
ReplyDeleteAha! I did not know that. Thanks Karin.
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