Starry Firework Cupcakes

It was Bonfire night here in the UK on Monday and as this is also the day that I take treats into work for the Monday Munchers I wanted it to be a themed treat. I remembered reading about a cake that had sugar sprinkles/strands folded into the cake batter just before baking to result in multi coloured streaks throughout the cake. This sounded ideal and I decided to give it a shot.

You must be very quick with the folding in of the coloured strands otherwise the colour starts to leech off them and gets lost into the surrounding batter. I know this as my last few spoonfuls of batter was dotted with little pools of red and green dye. I chose to bake cupcakes rather than a big cake as these are more portable and easy to share around. I was pleased with the results as the sugar dissolved into the cake but streaks of colour remained, speckling the sponge. I iced each one with a little glace icing (it was rather thin as I ran out of icing sugar) and decorated the tops of each one with tiny sugar stars.

From the outside they look just like ordinary cupcakes but biting into them reveals their speckled interior. I liked how the stars represent a starry night and then when you bite into them they reveal an explosion of coloured streaks to resemble fireworks. I bit of a long shot I know, but I had fun with it.


Starry Firework Cupcakes
Ingredients
110g self raising flour
110g butter or margarine
110g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tbsp sugar strands
Icing sugar and sugar stars to decorate

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a tin with 12 fairy cake cases.
Place all of the cake ingredients (expect the sugar strands) into a bowl and beat together with an electric mixer until pale, smooth and fluffy.
Quickly stir in the sugar strands using a spatula and divide the mixture between the paper cases.
Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes until risen, springy and golden brown.
Remove the cakes from the tin and allow to cool on a wire wrack.
Make some glace icing by dissolving some icing sugar in a very small amount of water.
Spread the icing over the top of the cooled cake and scatter over a array of multi coloured sugar stars.
Makes 12 cupcakes