It wouldn’t be Christmas without a bit of festive baking. I’ve been on such a mad one this year I’ve hardly had time to think about baking anything, so tonight when I had a bit of a free evening I decided to try and squeeze some cake making in. My cake decorating skills are more advanced in my head than in reality, and I usually find ambitious ideas on Pinterest, then have a mental breakdown in the kitchen when mine don’t even look remotely similar! So, for this attempt, I came up with my own little idea – Christmas Lights. It’s super easy, and the recipe is from my favourite Cadburys chocolate recipe book (although I altered it a little).
Makes 12 Cupcakes
You will need…
75g dark chocolate
140g unsalted butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
125g self-raising flour
1/4tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla essence
250g icing sugar
125g butter
splash of milk
1 tube of decorative chocolate icing
1 tube of multicoloured chocolate drops
First, preheat the oven to 180oC/350oF/Gas Mark 4 and put 12 cupcake cases in a cupcake tin.
Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl until it’s all liquid, then add 15g of the unsalted butter. In a separate bowl, mix together the rest of the butter, eggs, sugar, self-raising flour, baking powder, and vanilla essence. Beat it all up until the mixture is smooth.
Share out about two-thirds of the mixture into the cupcake cases, and make a slight indentation in the middle of each using a teaspoon.
Spoon a little of the chocolate sauce mixture into each one, and use the remaining cake mixture to cover these. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, until risen and until the middle of the cake rises back up when you press it (gently!).
While the cupcakes are cooling make the buttercream icing ready to go on. Cream the butter using the back of a fork, and then sift the icing sugar into the bowl with it. Cream this together, and if needed add a splash of milk. Keep creaming it together until it’s all mixed up.
Spoon a teaspoon of icing sugar onto each cupcake, and spread until it’s all covered. Use the decorative chocolate icing to make trails around the top of the cupcake for the ‘wires’. Afterwards, add the colourful chocolate drops randomly for the ‘lights’.
Yummy!
xx
