Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

Here's another recipe with an extremely low degree of difficulty but the wow impact is maximum. Every body loves a cupcake, everybody loves an ice cream cone. So why not put the 2 together to bedazzle the kids.

This is by no means an original idea of yours truly. I can not remember exactly where I got the inspiration from but there's a gazillion examples on the net. Once again I had very little time to make something for our gorgeous twin friends so I went for my party trick of little effort for maximum impact. Everything came out of a box, just a matter of putting it together. Here's how I did it.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

1 x cupcake mix (any brand, I used Greens)
1 x tub of vanilla frosting
24 flat bottom ice cream cones
whatever topping or sprinkle you like

**** of course if you want to avoid premix cake mix then knock yourself out making any cake base you like and butter icing works best for consistency ****

1. Take a piece of foil and cover 2 muffin trays. Make a small slit over each muffin hole and place ice cream cone in. This is done to stabilise the cone as it can fall if cake batter shifts too much in the baking process.

2. Mix cupcake mix according to directions on box.

3. Fill cone up to 2/3 full. Any more and the cake will over flow and look more like a melting ice cream cone.

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a preheated 180 degrees oven. Remove to cool.

5. Take a sharp knife and make a small hole at the bottom of the cone.This will help release some steam and keep cone crisp for longer.

6. Fill a pipping bag with your favourite icing and pipe. I used a star nozzle on some and also a plain nozzle on the others just for the different finish.

7. Decorate with sprinkles.

8. Watch the children's faces when they bite into it thinking it's real ice cream!!

Spiderman Cake

My little Big Boys have turned 3 years old. Celebrations all round!! Of course I wanted to bake their birthday cake so I asked them what they wanted. My boys are really into all things superhero at the moment and the superhero du jour is Spiderman so they wanted a Spiderman Cake.

I panicked at first but once the challenge was accepted by me I set out to find the easiest way I could make something that resembled our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman. The answer was very obvious, just make the face and get the colours right and tadaah ... a superhero cake.

The plan was to use fondant on the whole cake and then just fill in the web and eye details. Alas all good plans can come unhinged. I have not worked with fondant successfully EVER and this time was no different. I didn't have enough for the size of my cake and rolled it too thin and then I couldn't get it back off the rolled surfaced and when I did get some off it was sticky and broken and just awful. So I opted to just make a fondant top of cake and ice the sides that way I could get a thick enough fondant base that would not be stuck to the surface. Because I did not have ingredients to whip up a batch of icing (nor did I have the will as it was almost 10pm at that stage) I used store bought Betty Crocker's vanilla icing .. yum yum yum!

Here's what I made.

Spiderman Cake

1 round butter cake (approx 8.5 inches)
1 pack store bought ready to roll fondant
1 tube of Wilton's black icing
1 tub of Betty Crocker's vanilla icing
red gel colouring
blue liquid colouring

1. Draw a template of Spidey's face and pin on cake. Then neatly cut the shape out.

2. Ice the cut cake with a layer of icing. Not too thick as it's there mainly to help hold the fondant in place.

3. Use red gel colouring on fondant until you get the colour you want. Then cut Spidey's face out and place on top of cake.

4. Use a small tip needle or stick to trace the lines for eyes and web.

5. Fill in the blanks with the black icing. Either fit a small plain nozzle at the end of tube or put black icing in a pipping bag.

6. Make the icing for the side of cake blue. Then pipe to cover the sides.

7. Watch the excitement on the faces of the kids when you show them for the first time their Spiderman cake ... and then watch in horror as they stick their fingers into the blue icing almost immediately "just to taste" your efforts.