Making Vanilla Cupcakes with a little help from Betty Crocker !

Yesterday was just too cold and wet for going out geocaching so I decided to do some baking with Pierre instead. (Juliette was too busy making Monster High dolls house accessories from the contents of the recycling bin and various household objects - I kid you not  and they're actually quite good!) Anyway, back to the baking ! I decided to use one of the American Betty Crocker baking kits and we opted for Vanilla Cupcakes. Pierre thought this was a very good choice, as you can see.

Inside the box, you get some (rather squished) cupcake cases, a bag of cupcake mix, a bag of icing mix and a sachet of white chocolate sprinkles. You need to add some butter, oil and 2 eggs.

I'm still always very impressed when I see Pierre effortlessly crack an egg into the bowl !

He barely needed my help at all, which is why I love baking kits because it gives him the satisfaction of needing no input from me for measuring and weighing.

As Pierre licked the bowl, I popped the cupcakes into the oven for 16 minutes (along with the roast dinner - I wasn't sure if this would contaminate them but it didn't !)

Once they'd cooled, we mixed up the butter and the icing mix and started to ice them - it was very hard going though because the icing was quite firm.

Time to add the chocolate sprinkles, which Pierre took very seriously !

Although judging by the chocolate sprinkle on his nose, some of them accidentally landed in his mouth when I wasn't looking !

The cupcakes are quite firm and spongy - moreso than when I make them from scratch - but the kids declared them delicious and have been working their way through them rather swiftly !