Butterflies are free to fly

One thing I always like to do at the start of a week off is to make some cake to consume periodically during the course of the week. This time round I decided to make some butterfly cakes. The soundtrack was Cat Stevens' final album 'Back to Earth' which was recorded in 1978 and was his last record for nearly thirty years. The album was Stevens' best since his peak in the early seventies with the one-two punch of 'Tea for the Tillerman' and 'Teaser and the Firecat'. It is quite melancholy and one senses an era ending as the album unfolds but there is also an engaging purity and passion to the record that perhaps was due to Stevens recently converting to Islam which gave him a new focus in life.

I first made the sponge mixture by creaming together four ounces of low-fat margarine with four ounces of caster sugar until the grains of sugar in the bowl had been fully absorbed by the margarine. I then beat two eggs in a separate bowl and gradually stirred each into the mixture, which by now had become somewhat sloppy. So as to thicken the mixture enough to cook it properly I added four ounces of self-raising flour and stirred it in until the mixture had a consistency akin to that of a thick Angel Delight Pudding.

I greased sixteen patty tins in a baking tray with more margarine and then added enough of the mixture to reach the top of each individual tin. I cooked the mixture on 180 degrees, 190 for non-fan ovens, for twenty minutes and then put the tray to one side to cool.

While the sponges were cooling I made some butter cream icing by adding two ounces of low-fat margarine and four ounces of icing sugar to a bowl and stirring them together thoroughly using the same technique as I had to cream the margarine and sugar for the sponge mixture. This created an icing that was at first runny but set hard like cement after a period.

Once the sponges had cooled I took each out of its container and cut the top off them. I then cut each top in half length-ways and where I had removed the top from each sponge I put a layer of icing and then attached the two slices of sponge back onto each cake in the shape of a butterfly's wings.

I don't eat a lot of traditionally sweet cakes of this type however as I was on holiday this made a pleasant change and by using low-fat margarine it ensured that the sweetness in the cake was a tempered by a limited amount of fat.

Winged wonders- the freshly iced cakes.