3D Hot Air Balloon Cupcakes!

3D Hot Air Balloon Cupcakes!

Level of difficulty: hard - I can't lie, these are fiddly

For white chocolate mud cupcakes

• 165g/6ozs. butter (doesn’t matter if it’s at room temp or not in this recipe)

• 120g/4ozs. white chocolate broken up into pieces

• 1 1/3 cups white sugar

• 1 cup water

• 1 cup plain flour

• 1/4 cup cornflour or cornstarch

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 egg

For icing:

• 1/4 cup caster or superfine sugar

• 2 tablespoons water

• 1/3 cup cream

• 175g/6ozs unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1.5 teaspoons salt

• 2 cups icing or powdered sugar, sifted

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 150c fan forced or 170c non fan forced. Place butter, chocolate, sugar, the water in small saucepan over low heat until melted and combined. Cool for 15 minutes.

Step 2 - Using a whisk, add flour and then egg. Pour into patty tins. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool in tin.

Step 3 - Make the salted caramel buttercream frosting. In a heavy bottomed small saucepan, dissolve the sugar into the water and then increase heat to medium and allow to turn a golden caramel colour-it will take about 5 minutes to reach the desired colour (but don’t forget that caramel still cooks a little after taken off the heat). Add the cream and salt to the caramel and stir well to combine as the caramel will naturally harden and pool together. Allow to cool completely (or place it in a small metal bowl in the fridge or freezer to hurry it along).

Step 4 - In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a beater attachment, beat the butter for 5 minutes until pale and fluffy. Turn down the speed to low and add the sifted icing or powdered sugar and beat for 3-4 minutes. Then add the cooled salted caramel and beat until smooth. If it is too liquid, place in the fridge.

Step 5 - Using a fluted tip in a piping bag, pipe over the cupcakes with the icing and store in the fridge.

For cookies:

• 85 g/3ozs butter, softened

• 140g/5ozs white caster superfine sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• 180g/6ozs  all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• A Christmas bauble or light bulb cutter

• some long pop sticks that are oven proof (paper ones rather than plastic)

• cornflour, small edible hearts, medium leaf cutter and a non stick rolling pin

Step 1 - In a large bowl of an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Stir in the flour and cinnamon. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight but take it out ahead of time to let it become more rollable).

Step 2 - Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Using the christmas bauble cutter dipped in flour cut out as many "hot air balloons" as you can-trim the bottom of the dough, my bauble cutter had an extra bit at the end that I needed to cut off. Place cookies 1 inch apart on parchment paper and gently insert the pop stick.  Bake for 8-10 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Step 3 - On a non stick surface or a surface lightly dusted with cornflour roll out the fondant colour of your choice-I used two types of pink and white. Cut out the shape in the fondant using the bauble cutter and with a little water on a paintbrush, adhere the fondant to the cookies-I placed them on the flattest side of the cookie and where there was a bit of a gap with the pop stick-you can use it like blu tack to give the stick and cookie a bit more strength.

You can also do the pattern by placing one white and one pink cut out on top of each other making sure to dust cornflour in between them so that they don't stick and then cut out shapes. I used a medium leaf cutter and cut out the shapes and then took two cookies and placed the opposite pieces in each one-kind of like those toys that you used to play with as a kid where you fit the part to the hole.

One on top of each other (with cornflour between them to prevent them sticking)

Extras

• Extra fondant to make the animals in chocolate, white and pink

• Dried vermicelli noodles for the cat's whisker

• Edible black pen

• Candy string

• extra fondant to glue the string on and the sturdy stick on the back if you need it

Step 1 -  Make the animals-you are only making the heads and the arms so it isn't too hard. To make the dog's head roll some chocolate fondant into a ball and then make a smaller ball and attach it as the nose and pinch it so that it becomes a little pointy. Affix a tiny pink ball on the end for the nose. Roll ears-you want thin, long ovals that you can attach with a little water onto the head (you can position them to make them look "floppy." Roll tiny white balls and affix these eyes and draw an iris in the centre of the eye.

Step 2 - To make the cake roll a ball of fondant (I rolled a white and brown ball to make a white and black cat). Make the ears but rolling some fondant out and cutting out two triangles and affix these to the head with a little water. Affix a tiny pink ball on the end for the nose.  Roll tiny white balls (cat's eyes are more oval shaped than dog's) and affix these eyes and draw an iris in the centre of the eye. Break off tiny bits of vermicelli and add two to each side of the nose. To make arms for the cats and dogs, roll out some sausages of brown fondant. Place the animals, two to a cupcake and put the arms hanging over the edge of the cupcake like they are looking over the edge of the basket.

Step 3 - To assemble I find it easiest if the cupcake is frozen. This allows the cookie to stand upright and helps if you are displaying these although these are not the types of cupcakes that will stand for a long display time especially outside of air conditioning. Now that the cookies are decorated and the cupcakes are iced, this is the last part. Take a chopstick or an extra pop stick and dig a hole eight in the centre of the frozen cupcake. This is where you hot air balloon will sit.

Step 4 - Cut out some lengths of the edible string and roll the fondant into small balls and use it like blu tack to adhere it to the back of the cookie. It should reach to the buttercream. If you really want to display these, use an extra pop stick and some fondant as blu tack on the back of the cookie to prop it up from the back.