Midnight Baking Cupcakes - 1 - $ - V

Earlier this week my friend Beth asked me if I had a simple cupcake recipe for last minute midnight baking. When a girls gotta bake, a girls gotta bake!
To qualify for midnight baking I think the recipe should be: quick; have a list of ingredients that will always be in the cupboard; be simple enough that you can vary it to suit your tastes and use up whatever you might have hanging around.

Today also happens to be Beth's birthday! She is kissing goodbye her 20s and crossing over into the dirty thirties - welcome Beth and happy birthday!

I made some cupcakes for last night's party. My version had chocolate icing, to which I added some peppermint extract and then smashed up a peppermint crisp and sprinkled the crumbs over the top. Just like that - we had choc mint cupcakes!
The following recipe you can vary as much as your imagination will let you.

Ingredients - makes 12 large cupcakes or 24 little ones
1 cup sugar
2 cups self-raising flour
2 eggs
6tbsp of melted butter
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (or any other flavouring you like)

Preheat oven to 170C degrees. Lay out your patty pans on a tray.
With an electric mixer, beat the sugar, vanilla, butter and eggs until creamy.
Sift in one cup of the flour and mix well. Add the milk a little at a time and continue to mix well. Add the last cup of sifted flour and mix well.
Spoon the batter into the patty pans and cook for 20-30 minutes. (If you're making really little diddy ones, check the cooking time after 15 minutes.)
Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before you ice and decorate them.

Enjoy!