Caramel Bonfire Cupcakes

 Hello there! Now that Halloween is over, and it's officially November (can I mention Christmas yet?) the next 'holiday' in the calendar is Bonfire/Firework Night (Guy Fawkes) on the 5th November. We always used to set off fireworks at home, but as we unable to do this in the tiny bin area of my shared house, we're off to watch other people's fireworks via standing on a hill. This may not sound great but we did it last year and it was actually really good! As well as going to watch the fireworks, I thought this was a great excuse for baking, and so I made some bonfire cupcakes. I'm so pleased with how these have come out, that I thought I would share the recipe with you so you can make your very own in time for Thursday! 

 For the cakes I used the recipe from the carnation website, and it worked out really well. The recipe said that it would make 12, but I actually ended up having enough for 16!

 Ingredients for the cakes:

-250g self raising flour

-100g caster sugar

-55g cocoa powder

-2tsp baking powder

-2 eggs

-150ml milk

-4tbsp vegetable oil

-397g tin of caramel

 Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl. In a separate bowl mix the milk, eggs, oil and a 'dollop' of caramel (I took this to be a large tablespoon size).

 

 Here I preheated my oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas mark 5, but you may want to do this earlier/later depending on how long your oven takes to heat up.

 Add the liquid mixture a bit at a time to the dry ingredients and mix together. Once it is combined you then need to swirl in the rest of the caramel. 

 Once the mixture is combined, you need to spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until you can touch the cake and it bounces back.

 Whilst these are cooling, you can prepare the icing/bonfire part of the cupcake!

Ingredients for the 'bonfire':
-Matchmakers (I went for the tangy orange flavour)
-100g softened butter
-200g icing sugar
-red and yellow food colouring- another time I would perhaps use orange rather than red, as it didn't come out as red as I would have liked.

 Chop up some of the matchmakers into 'bonfire' pieces, don't worry if you don't cut up enough in one go, you can always cut up some more as you decorate.
 Separate the butter into two, and place in separate bowls. Add 100g of icing sugar to each, and a bit of the food colouring. Whisk both of the icing mixtures- we washed the whisk parts in between so as to not mix the colours. If you're finding that your icing isn't fully coming together then just add a splash of milk and that will sort it out.

 

 

 

  On ensuring that the cupcakes have cooled you can now create the bonfires! The swirling of the two icing mixtures would probably work better in a piping bag, but as I don't have any piping equipment, I managed to do it with a teaspoon. Take half a spoonful of each icing, and swirl it together on the cake. Once the icing is on the cake, you can create the bonfire. Simply take pieces of the matchmakers, stick them into the icing on a slant so that the pieces meet in the middle and you have your bonfire! Repeat on all of your cupcakes. 

 

 

 I'm really pleased with how effective these cupcakes are, as you can clearly see what they are supposed to be! Place your cupcakes onto a stand (how adorable is this cake stand that my parents bought me for my birthday?) and hand them out to your friends- don't forget to have one yourself! Cupcake-wise they were really yummy, as you would be eating chocolate cake and then come across a gooey caramel bit. Everyone that I gave one to thought they were really effective and yummy, so why not have a go at making them yourself to see how good they are? As always if you make them please let me know/send me a picture! 

Love Jess xxx