Perfect for gifts for your guests.
Everything you could want in a cupcake, dried fruit, chocolate and booze!
How yummy!?
Ingredients:
-
Brandy soaked cranberries chocolate cupcakes
- Makes 12 cupcakes
- 130g plain flour
- 140g caster sugar
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 20g cocoa powder
- 40g softened salted butter
- 1 egg
- 120ml whole milk
- 10ml vanilla extract
- 1 handful of dark choc chips (min 53% cocoa solids)
- 100g (freshly bought) dried cranberries
- 100ml cooking brandy
For the icing:
- 300g icing sugar
- 100g salted butter
- 45g cocoa powder
- 30ml whole milk
- 10ml vanilla extract
- Dark green fondant (m and b is best for this)
- Poppy red fondant (regal ice)
- White fondant
- Muffin tray
- Brown muffin cases
- Rolling Pin
- Icing sugar dispenser
- All fondant
- Small holly leaf cutter
- Thin paintbrush and glass of water for glue
- Star nozzle 848 and piping bag
- Sieve
- Mixer
- Mixing bowls
- Hob
- Saucepan
- Measuring jug
- Spoons and measuring spoons
- Cooling rack
- Oven 170 for 20 mins
- Bring the brandy up to the boil on the hob then remove and add the cranberries.
- Cover with a lid and leave for one hour.
- Meanwhile, put the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl – flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa and butter (treat butter as ‘dry’ for our purposes).
- Mix until you have an even sandy consistency.
- Measure out the milk in a jug, add the egg and vanilla and whisk well.
- Drizzle into the flour whilst mixing, until you have a smooth batter/mixture.
- Add the chocolate chips and drained cranberries and mix in briefly without bashing into pieces.
- Reserve your brandy.
- Spoon evenly into 12 cupcake cases and bake at 170 degrees for 20 minutes until bounce back to the touch.
- Cool on a wire rack and in the meantime make the icing by mixing all the ingredients together for several minutes until light and fluffy.
- Pour in 10-20ml of your cooking brandy into the icing depending on the consistency – you should aim for something that holds its shape without being too stiff.
- Pipe the icing on top of the cakes using a reusable piping bag and large star nozzle.
- Roll out a small amount of white fondant and cut with a circular cutter about 2 inches in diameter.
- Place with on top of your icing allowing folds to appear like a table cloth around the sides.
- Roll out some dark green fondant and either cut out three holly leaves if you have a cutter or mould three leaves if you do not.
- Place these on your fondant with a dab of a damp paintbrush.
- Roll three red berries from your red fondant and stick on top with the damp paintbrush to finish.
- For a basic cupcake recipe just use mine above and leave out the brandy soaked cranberries.
Recipe and photo credit by- - Food Network
