Preheat your oven to 170C/160CFan and grease and flour, or cut mini circles and line the bottoms of your cups in your 12-hole mini sandwich tin!
Cream together the butter and caster sugar with an electric beater until smooth – add in the beaten eggs, flour, and vanilla and beat again for about about 20-30 seconds on a medium speed – it really doesn’t take too long, you don’t want to overheat it!
Spoon into your tin evenly per cup and bake in the oven for 16-18 minutes or until cooked through! Leave to cool on a wire rack.
Once the cakes are cool, make the frosting – beat the softened butter until smooth – this can take a couple of minutes. Add in the icing sugar 1/3 at a time, making sure the sugar is fully incorporated each time until moving on!
I use my KitchenAid for frostings as the machine can make it so much lighter and fluffier!
Once all of the sugar is in the frosting mix, keep on beating the frosting but add the vanilla, and then add 1 tbsp of boiling water at a time till you reach your desired consistency! I usually use about 3 spoonfuls!
Cut each cake in half carefully – using a piping bag, pipe on some buttercream for each cake. Spoon on some raspberry or strawberry jam, and then add the other half of each mini cake on top!
Decorate your cupcakes how you like – I melted over some white chocolate, and then sprinkled on some freeze dried raspberries/strawberries! – and ENJOY!