Gloverly Cupcakes

In my office there is a cake trolley every Friday for charity – the charity changes each month. February’s cake trolleys were to raise money for Maggie’s Centre in Newcastle – Maggie’s offers free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their families and friends. Until last week I’d been busy every Friday in February making cakes for other people. So last Friday was the first week I was able to bake something for the trolley and I wanted to make something slightly different so on Thursday night this little piggy stayed home The trolley was going to be themed around chocolate so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to make some pig in the mud cupcakes. I’d wanted to make some cupcakes for a while, based on the pigs in a barrel cake which went viral. They turned out to be pretty quick to make, so having made a batch on Thursday evening for the cake trolley, I also made some on Saturday morning for Tom to take to hockey and for me to drop of for my running club to have after their cross-country race. The cakes I made for the cake trolley were chocolate (recipe here) and the ones I made on Saturday morning were hot chocolate (recipe here). I weighed out the mixture to make sure they were all even – 45g in each muffin case turned out perfectly! I covered them all in buttercream using a palette knife – you want them to look slightly messy! I made the pigs out of pink fondant icing:

1. For the bottoms – roll about 10g of pink fondant icing into a ball and squash the bottom onto the work surface, Press the blunt side of the knife into one side, from the bottom to the top. Roll a very thin sausage out of icing. Stick one end to the top of the line you’ve create with a drop of water and then curl it round using a cocktail stick to create the tail.
2. For the bodies – roll about 10g of pink fondant icing into an oval and flatten one side on the work surface. Using a cocktail stick make a hole in each one for the belly button.
3. For the trotter – pinch off small amounts of icing, roll into a ball and then press the back of a knife into the middle to create the groove in the trotter.
4. For the heads – roll about 5g of icing into a ball and flatten it slightly. Pinch another small bit of icing off and roll into a ball – squash between your fingers and using the blunt end of a bamboo skewer make two indents for the nostrils and use a curved modelling tool to mark the mouth. Stick the snout onto the face using a bit of water. Pinch off tiny bits of icing and form into triangles – press a small ball tool into the bottom of the triangle and then fix to the head using a bit of water. Finally mark the eyes using a cocktail stick dipped in black food colouring (gel or paste).

Finally using a paintbrush mix a bit of buttercream with a splash of water and paint a few patches of “mud” onto the little piggies…