Hollie is one of those Guides I've known for a long time. Pretty much on her seventh birthday she walked into Brownies, confident, self assured and one of the nicest whilst very competitive children I've ever met. She started asking me about Guides six months before she even turned ten and had planned to come up bang on her tenth birthday so that she could combine moving up with her first sleepover. When you're working with children people often think it's the loudest, or the quietest that get the most attention, and as a Guider it's hard to balance those in tears, or those yelling with those getting on in the background. But you know what it's something I try to do, to make sure that they all get that validation from our leadership team, in whatever way is right for them. Hollie is adamant she's no good at crafts, yet the patch she designed for our quilt recently was beautiful. Truth be told I wasn't sure how she'd take to a baking challenge, but she embraced it head on, last week when I asked who wanted to bake this week her arm sprang into the air much as it would if I'd asked who wanted to be cat or mouse. She chose to make Rocky mountain cupcakes, and was the only Guide who asked if it was OK to split her Random Bake of Kindness up, because "there are lots of people who love me and make sure I'm OK." Hence the cupcakes I guess.
So this week at Guides was a tricky one, I was coming down with a migraine and we were a leader down. Sometimes I'm so proud of having grown the unit to the size it is now, but sometimes they're just so loud - and it was a windy day - which as anyone who works with kids will tell you, somehow gets under their skin and makes them noisier than ever - which is a lot if you have 27 in one room. Still we managed two more Random Bakes, some quilting, Community Action to save our local library, making pinatas, drama games and a fashion show for teddy bears. Extra points if you can guess which Go For It's! the girls have chosen to this term.
Rocky mountain cupcakes
200g softenend butter (from here on in this butter = Stork)
140g caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs, lightly beaten
150g self-raising flour
55g cocoa powder
Topping
Chocolate buttercream
85g mini marshmallows
55g milk chocolate broken up and melted
I thought something else was going on top, but apparently the toppings were heavily sampled and didn't quite make it on the cakes!
Preheat the oven to 180degreesC/ Gas Mark4
Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Beat in the vanilla extract
Gradually beat in the eggs adding a spoonful of flour each time to stop the mixture from curdling
Fold the sifted flour and cocoa into the mixture
Spoon into the paper cases
Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until springy to the touch, transfer to a wire rack to cool
Spoon or pipe the buttercream onto the cakes and top with the marshmallows, nuts and anything else you like in rocky road
Top with drizzled, melted chocolate and leave to set.
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