Day of the Dead Cupcakes

Pop the chopped apple, toffee vodka and 25g Light brown sugar into a small saucepan, pop one the lid and simmer over a medium heat for 10 minutes until the apples have slightly softened and the sugar is melted. 

Whilst your apple is simmering, preheat your oven to 180⁰C/160⁰C fan oven/gas mark 4 and line a muffin tray with 10 muffin cases.

In a large bowl whisk together the melted butter, oil and water until blended. 

In a jug beat together the eggs, Vanilla Extract and soured cream, then whisk into the butter mixture.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, Bicarbonate of Soda, Baking Powder and cinnamon. Then add to the wet ingredients and whisk. 

Finally, once your apple has simmered, pop the apple into your sponge mixture and stir through. Leave the syrup to one side for later.

Half fill each muffin case with the mixture and pop a toffee into each case and cover with the remaining mixture – it might be easier to transfer your mixture into a jug and pour it in the cases as it is quite runny.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden and risen. Once baked brush the reserved syrup over the top of each cupcakes for a sweet boozy hit. Leave your cupcakes to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then pop onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Lets start with the buttercream; pop the butter into a large bowl and beat using an electric hand whisk until smooth and lighter in colour. Gradually beat in the icing sugar, then add the Vanilla Extract and vodka and beat until you have a lovely light and fluffy buttercream. 

Pop your buttercream into a piping bag fitted with an open star nozzle. Once your cupcakes have cooled pipe a swirl of buttercream around the top of each cupcake, making sure it is flat for the fondant to sit on.

Divide the remaining buttercream into 3 bowls, colour one bowl purple, one black and one orange and cover with cling film. 

Knead the fondant on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar and roll out to approx. ¼cm thickness and cut out 10 circles approx. 6cm in diameter, if you don’t have a cutter you can just use an up turned glass. 

Use the decorating icings to decorate your fondant disks, to create the black paint, mix ¼ tsp of icing sugar with a few drops of black colour gel until you have a paste consistency. You can use a cocktail stick or small paint brush to paint it onto the fondant to create the features. Once you have decorated the fondant disks pop onto the top of your cupcakes.

Pop the coloured buttercream into separate piping bags fitted with a small star nozzle – if you only have one nozzle you can do this one at a time or use a variety of nozzles. Pipe dots of buttercream in the different colours around the top of the fondant disk to create the floral headband effect and finish with a few dots of gold decorating icing in the headband.

Ta-dah you’re ready for Halloween with your fabulous cupcakes!