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Halloween Spider’s Web Cupcakes
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Although we tell you here how to make the icing for these
cupcakes, you can, of course, if you prefer buy the icing
and a tube of writing icing.
Recipe Ingredients
Makes about 12 spiderweb cupcakes
1 cup (4oz) of self-rising flour
4oz superfine sugar
4oz soft margarine or butter
2 eggs
A few drops of vanilla extract
About 2 tablespoons milk
And to Ice
About 1½ cups confectioners’ sugar (powdered
sugar)
About 1-2 tablespoons or so of tepid water
½ teaspoon instant coffee
You will also need
A muffin pan lined with paper baking cups
Toothpicks
Icing bag with writing tip
Preparation and cooking instructions
The margarine and eggs for Halloween spider web cupcakes
should ideally be at room temperature so you may need to remove
them from the refrigerator about an hour or so before baking,
and if you’re using butter this needs to be very soft
so you may need to remove this several hours before baking.
Then when you’re ready to begin, preheat the oven to
375°F, and sift the flour into a large mixing bowl. Now
add the superfine sugar, soft margarine, eggs and the vanilla
extract and with a electric hand mixer whisk to mix, alternatively
put all the ingredients apart from the milk into a food processor
and mix until smooth. Then when the ingredients are combined
add the milk, what you’re aiming for here is a soft
dropping consistency - the mixture should drop easily from
a wooden spoon when shaken - if not then just add a little
more milk and mix again. Spoon the mixture into the paper
baking cups and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until pale gold
and cooked. Leave the cakes in the pan for a few minutes,
before transferring to a wire rack and leaving to cool. Then
when the cakes are cool, so that you have a flat surface to
ice, carefully cut-off any little peaks from the cake tops.
Now to ice the cakes – first sift the confectioners’
sugar into a bowl, then gradually stir in just enough tepid
water to make an icing that is smooth and thickly coats the
back of the spoon. If the icing is too runny just add a little
more confectioners’ sugar, or if it’s too thick,
just add a little more tepid water, now take two tablespoons
of the icing and put this into a cup, and mix with half a
teaspoon of instant coffee. Transfer the coffee icing to an
icing-decorating bag with a writing tip and fold over ready
for icing. Now spread the white icing onto one of the cakes
to cover its top. Then in the middle of the white iced cupcake
draw a small circle with the coffee icing, around this draw
a second slightly larger circle and around this draw a third
larger circle, so that in effect you have circles within circles
- don’t worry if the circles are a bit wonky. Then to
make a spider web pattern, using a toothpick, lightly draw
lines from the center of the cupcake outwards. Repeat this
procedure with each cake in turn until all the cupcakes have
been white iced and have a creepy spider web design. If the
icing becomes a bit stiff before you have a chance to use
it, just add a little more tepid water and mix well. Have
a spooky Halloween !
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