A day in the life of a domestic goddess

Baking used to be such a simple past time; I would just bake the amount that the recipe called for and then they would be all gone in a couple of days thanks to my piggy family (Aidan I'm looking at you! He had 3 of these oreo cupcakes in one day - one with breakfast, lunch and dinner). But lately, I have to double the recipes so that I can take them into work, take them into the office, and have some for home, and even then my friends miss out. Supply and demand is a lot more hard work than it sounds. My latest masterpiece were these oreo cupcakes with an oreo hidden at the bottom and crushed up oreos in the cream cheese frosting. And seeing as they disappeared so quickly despite the fact that I made 36 (kindof by accident), I thought you might like the recipe to try them out for yourself. This recipe is supposedly for 12 but when I doubled it, I made 36 and still had quite a bit of mix left over but no more tins to make any extra cakes so the original recipe probably makes 20.

1. Start by rubbing together 80g of unsalted butter and 200g of plain flour until it looks like breadcrumbs and there are no chunks of butter left and then stir in 280g of caster sugar, 30g of cocoa powder (or more or less depending on how chocolately you want them) and 3 tsp of baking powder.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together 240ml of milk, 2 eggs and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract. Then slowly add the mixture into the flour-sugar-cocoa mixture, beating well as you go to get rid of any lumps.

3. When the mixture is smooth and combined, you'll need to pour it into cupcake cases. This is easiest if you transfer it from your mixing bowl to a jug first so you don't spill it everywhere. Fill a muffin tin with cupcake cases and put an oreo in the bottom of each case before adding the cake mixture until they're all about 2/3 full. Then bake for 20-23 minutes at 170C/160C fan - you'll know they're done when they're springy to the touch and a cocktail stick inserted into the middle comes out clean with no cake mix on it.

4. While the cakes are cooking and cooling you can make the frosting (and wash the pots). Whisk together 100g of unsalted butter (softened) and 160g of cream cheese until they're well combined and then whisk in 350g of sifted icing sugar. This is easiest and less messy if you add half, whisk until it's smooth and then add the other half and whisk again. Then smash up 6 oreos in a sealed bag using a rolling pin, and then stir the crumbs into the frosting.

5. Once the cakes have cooled you can frost them. I attempted using a piping bag but the oreo crumbs got stuck in the nozzle and I ended up in one big mess so I ended up just spooning the frosting on and smoothing it with the back of a spoon (FYI, it works just as well as piping and creates less things to wash). Then I cut oreos into quarters and decorated each cake with 2 oreo quarters. And then let them eat cake!