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Twinkling star cupcakes

Prep time: 1 hr, plus 2 hrs drying
Cook time: 20 min
Serves: 12

Pastel pink and green icing and sparkling, glittery stars, make Angela Nilsen's pretty cakes perfect to serve at parties

Ingredients

For the decorations

• 250 g ready-to-roll whiteicing
• claret and mint green edible pastefood colouring
• small silvercoloured dragees
• edible glitter, such as Disco white hologram by Edable Art

For the cupcakes

• 115 g softenedbutter, cubed
• 115 g goldencaster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 125 g self-raising flour
• 25 g groundalmonds
• ½ tsp almond extract

For the icing

• 250 g fondanticing sugar
• claret and mint green edible pastefood colouring

Method

1.For the decorations: slice off a quarter of the ready-to-roll icing (wrap the rest to prevent it drying out) then colour one half of it pastel pink and one half pastel green. Wrap both colours in cling film.

2. On a work surface lightly sprinkled with icing sugar, roll out the reserved white icing. Cut out 12 white stars using an 8cm diameter star cutter. (You will need to re-roll the trimmings.) Place a 3.5-4cm star cutter in the centre of one star and cut out a smaller star, so you have a large cut-out star and a smaller star. Repeat to give 12 cut-out and 12 smaller white stars. Keep re-rolling the trimmings to give you enough white stars.

3. Press a few silver dragees into the smallest white stars and lay all the stars on a large board lined with baking parchment.

4. Using a 5-5.5cm star cutter, roll out the pink and green icings and cut out 6 stars from each colour. Lay them by the white stars, brush each one with a little edible glitter, then leave them all to dry and firm up, about 1½-2 hrs.

5. For the cupcakes: preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole bun tin with silver paper cases.

6. Tip the butter, sugar, eggs and flour into a large bowl and beat together with an electric hand mixer for 1½-2 minutes until the mixture is light and well mixed. Using a large metal spoon, lightly fold in the ground almonds and almond extract.

7. Divide the mixture between the paper cases and bake for 20 minutes until risen. Leave in the tin for a couple of minutes, then lift the cakes onto a wire rack and leave until cold.

8. For the icing: stir about 2 tablespoons water into the fondant icing sugar to give a smooth, thickish icing. Remove half to a second bowl and colour one batch pastel pink and the other pastel green, using the edible food colourings. Spoon the icings over the cooled cakes so that the tops are almost covered and leave to set for a few minutes.

9. Arrange one large white star, one medium coloured star (using pink stars on the green iced cakes, and green stars on the pink iced ones) then one small white star on top of each cupcake, securing with a little of the fondant icing if necessary.

Death by chocolate cupcake
By: Lisa Harris

Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Serves: makes 12

Chunky chocolate chip sponge, a swirl of decadent frosting and a topping made from all your favourite chocolate bars – can you handle Lisa Harris’s Death by Chocolate cupcake?

Ingredients

For the sponge

• 100 g self-raising flour, sifted
• 145 g goldencaster sugar
• 40 g butter, at room temperature
• 20 g cocoa powder
• 120 ml wholemilk
• 1 largeegg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp instant coffee, dissolved in 1tsp hot water
• 100 g 70% cocoadark chocolate, cut into chunks

For the frosting

• 225 g butter
• 350 g icing sugar, sifted
• 50 g cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp wholemilk

To decorate

• Assortedchocolate bars, cut into small pieces (such as Mars bars, twix, flake, maltesers, chocolate buttons…)

Method

1. For the sponge: preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole tin with cupcake paper cases. Tip the flour, sugar, butter and cocoa powder into a food processor and blitz on a slow speed for one minute, until you achieve a sandy consistency.

2. Gradually pour in half of the milk and beat until just incorporated. Don’t worry if it looks a little messy at this stage – it will come together! In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining milk together with the egg, vanilla essence and coffee. Pour into the batter and beat for a couple of minutes until smooth, scraping down the side of the bowl to catch any unmixed ingredients as you go. Fold through the chocolate chunks with a spoon.

3. Divide the mixture between the 12 paper cases, filling each one up two-thirds full. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when prodded with a finger. Leave to cool on a wire rack while you make the frosting.

4. For the frosting: Tip the butter, icing sugar and cocoa powder into a food processor and beat until well combined. Add the milk and then beat again for a couple of minutes until light and fluffy.

5. When the sponges have cooled completely, carefully spoon a third of the frosting into a piping bag and use it to decorate the first four cupcakes. Repeat until you have finished them all. Alternatively, just use a palette knife to spread about 2 tbsp of frosting onto each cupcake.

6. Decorate as you like with different chocolate bar pieces.

Cooks Tips...

Leftover frosting? Try sandwiching two digestive biscuits together with a dollop for a quick pudding.

Don't worry if your cupcake comes out of the oven looking a little flat - it's supposed to happen! A flat sponge is ideal when it comes to frosting the cupcake.

Christmas cupcakes

These beautiful and classy little cakes make lovely gifts, and kids will enjoy decorating them too

Makes 12

Preparation and cooking times

Prep 40 mins
Cook 45 mins
Can be frozen un-iced

Ingredients

• 200g dark muscovado sugar
• 175g butter , chopped
• 700g luxury mixed dried fruits
• 50g glacé cherries
• 2 tsp grated fresh root ginger
• zest and juice 1 orange
• 100ml dark rum , brandy or orange juice
• 85g/3oz pecan nuts, roughly chopped
• 3 large eggs , beaten
• 85g ground almonds
• 200g plain flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 400g pack ready-rolled marzipan (we used Dr Oetker)
• 4 tbsp warm apricot jam or shredless marmalade
• 500g pack fondant icing sugar
• icing sugar , for dusting

• 6 gold and 6 silver muffin cases
• 6 gold and 6 silver sugared almonds
• snowflake sprinkles

1. Tip the sugar, butter, dried fruit, whole cherries, ginger, orange zest and juice into a large pan. Pour over the rum, brandy or juice, then put on the heat and slowly bring to the boil, stirring frequently to melt the butter. Reduce the heat and bubble gently, uncovered for 10 mins, stirring every now and again to make sure the mixture doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan. Set aside for 30 mins to cool.

2. Stir the nuts, eggs and ground almonds into the fruit, then sift in the flour, baking powder and spices. Stir everything together gently but thoroughly. Your batter is ready.

3. Heat oven to 150C/130C fan/gas 2. Scoop the cake mix into 12 deep muffin cases (an ice-cream scoop works well), then level tops with a spoon dipped in hot water. Bake for 35-45 mins until golden and just firm to touch. A skewer inserted should come out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

4. Unravel the marzipan onto a work surface lightly dusted with icing sugar. Stamp out 12 rounds, 6cm across. Brush the cake tops with apricot jam, top with a marzipan round and press down lightly.

5. Make up the fondant icing to a spreading consistency, then swirl on top of each cupcake. Decorate with sugared almonds and snowflakes, then leave to set. Will keep in a tin for 3 weeks.

833 kcalories, protein 9g, carbohydrate 139g, fat 29 g, saturated fat 9g, fibre 3g, sugar 125g, salt 0.44 g

Recipe from Good Food magazine, December 2009.

Christmas Tree Cup Cakes

Makes 12

Ingredients

1 quantity buttermilk sponge mixture

For the decoration

• 1 quantity meringue buttercream
• Green food colouring paste
• Edible green glitter
• Coloured sugar balls
• Gold and silver sugar stars

Equipment

• 1–2 muffin tins, lined with 12 brown paper cupcake cases
• Large piping bag, fitted with a medium star-shaped nozzle

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Divide the sponge mixture between the cupcake cases, filling them two-thirds full.

2. Bake on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden, well risen and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

3. Put three-quarters of the buttercream in a bowl and tint it green using the food colouring paste. Leave the rest untinted and spread some of this over the top of each cold cupcake.

4. Fill the piping bag with the green frosting and, working from the centre, pipe pointed branch shapes towards the edges of the cupcake. Keep doing this, turning the cupcake as you go, until you have the bottom of a tree. Repeat with the next layer up, making the branches shorter. Carry on with more layers, making the branches ever shorter as you get to the top of the tree.

5. Dust with green glitter and decorate with coloured sugar balls. Top with a gold or silver star.