Gloverly Cupcakes

This weekend I decided to have a cooking weekend – I did a  roast chicken, made two different types of soup, baked muffins for breakfast, made the Christmas cake, baked and (half) decorated some Halloween cookies, and I also made these…

I decided that for once when I take cupcakes into the office, I will let people decorate their own – well, finish off the decoration at least. When I was trying to decide what Halloween things to make this year I came up with idea of “carve your own” pumpkin cupcakes. If you buy a pumpkin, you always carve the face you chose so why not do the same with pumpkin cupcakes? So rather than putting the faces on myself, I made a selection of small biscuits shapes for the eyes, nose and mouth which people can chose themselves.

The “faces” are made from orange biscuits, coated in black icing – I made the biscuit dough to make some other Halloween biscuits so I just used up the left over dough. The cupcakes are chocolate orange, topped with orange buttercream. I haven’t actually tried the cupcakes yet, but they’re from the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book so I’m sure they’ll be tasty – you might need to get some scary pumpkins to guard them to prevent them being eaten straight away….

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes (from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days)

Mades 20 (the recipe says makes 12-16 but I got 20 out of it!)

70g unsalted butter, softened

210g caster sugar

105g soft light brown sugar

2 eggs

1tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp finely grated orange zest

255g plain flour

50g cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

240ml milk

Line 2 muffin trays with 20 orange cases. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5.

Beat the butter and sugars together until creamy. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the orange zest and vanilla.

Sift together the remaining dry ingredients and add in three batches, alternating with the milk, until it’s all been added. Scrape down the sides after each addition and after everything has been added increase the speed and continue beating until smooth.

Divide the mixture evenly between the 20 cases (or fill as many cases 2/3rds full as you can) and then bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes until they are lightly browned on top and spring back when pressed (and a skewer comes out clean). I usually check them and turn them around after 15 minutes.

Take out the tins immediately and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Orange Buttercream (adapted from Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days)

500g icing sugar

160g butter

30ml milk

30ml orange juice

Finely grated zest of half an orange

Beat the icing sugar, butter and orange zest together on a very slow speed until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. I always put a tea towel over the top of my KitchenAid to prevent icing sugar going everywhere! Then slowly add the milk and orange juice. Once it’s all been added increase the speed and beat on high for 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add orange (or red and yellow!) food colouring.

To create pumpkins…

Once the cupcakes are cool, spread the orange buttercream on to the top and then using a cocktail stick draw lines to create a “pumpkin”. Make up a small amount of royal icing, colour it green and pipe on to create a stalk for each “pumpkin”.