Christmas Cupcakes

Seeing as I am stuck in bed at the moment I thought I would take the opportunity to catch up on posting some of the recipes I have been making for Christmas. This first one was inspired by the Primrose Bakery girls. Santa very kindly delivered the book to me on Christmas morning but before that the cupcakes were featured on the front cover of the January 2010 edition of Cook Vegetarian magazine.

Only thing is that I already have an all time favourite recipe for Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes that I thought I would make instead of the Primrose plain chocolate cupcakes. And then, because the cupcakes were already nice and pepperminty flavoured they just had to be topped in huge billowing clouds of plain buttercream from the Australian Women's Weekly series of books.

And then I hunted high and low to try and find the striped peppermints that have been used in the original but I couldn't find them anywhere. I will admit that I did start my search the week before Christmas which in hindsight may have not been the best plan of attack. Last minute Christmas gift shoppers stood in my way at every turn so my hunt wasn't quite as exhaustive as it could have been. In the end I opted for some old fashioned boiled sweets, they work quite well except that they are fruit flavoured and not peppermint but that hasn't stopped us from devouring them over the Christmas break.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

125g butter, softened

125g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

125g SR flour

Few drops of peppermint flavouring (my few drops is more like two cap fulls!)

100g plain chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Line a 12 hole bun tray with paper cases.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs, flour and peppermint flavouring and beat the mixture until smooth, then stir in the chocolate drops. Divide the mixture between the paper cases and bake in the centre of the oven for 12 to 15 mins until the cakes have risen and are just firm to the touch in the centre. Remove the cakes from the oven and transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 12 standard size cupcakes

Taken from Cupcakes by Sue McMahon

Its usually at this point that the cupcakes get picked off the cooling rack one by one until there aren't enough left to warrant making a batch of icing. I'm pleased to say that these ones did go the distance, we must have been totally stuffed on all the leftovers from Christmas day!

Buttercream Icing

125g butter, softened

240g icing sugar

2 tbsp milk

Beat the butter in a small bowl with an electric mixer until as white as possible. Gradually beat in half the icing sugar (good idea to sift it in), milk, then the remaining icing sugar.

Makes enough to generously ice one batch of cupcakes

Taken from The Australian Women's Weekly Kid's Party Cakes

After the cupcakes had cooled I swirled the icing on with a teaspoon. Its not the prettiest icing job in the world but seeing as this is about the second batch of cupcakes I've ever managed to ice I'm pretty happy with it. Then a broke up a box of candy canes and sprinkled over the top and finished it all off with a boiled sweet. I picked out just the red and green ones but there are loads left over ... this can only mean there will be more cupcakes on the way just as soon as I am mobile again.