Christmas Pudding Cupcakes and Cake Pops

Good Morning. I’m back as after decorating my teacakes, I made some quick cupcakes and cake pops [don’t worry – I’ve stuck to one design idea for these]. I have cheated – I tend to where sponge is concerned as it’s not my favourite and it has all gone horribly wrong when I’m tight for time – so pre-made chocolate cupcakes were bought to help me on this one. A pack of 12 costs £1 in most supermarkets and one pack sorted me for 8 cupcakes and 8 generously size cake pops.

What I Used:
12 Sainsburys pre-made fairy cupcakes
Sainsburys chocolate icing
White roll icing
White chocolate / Green and Red icing pens / Red sugar balls

First: cupcakes | three slightly different ways but all Christmas Puddings.

Keeping 3 of the pre-made cupcakes in their cases, I used 2 tablespoons of chocolate icing to swirl on to the tops with a piping bag - you could also add this with a spoon - but as my icing tops were going to sit on top, I wanted it to look neat - but if you choose to make larger icing tops, you might not see it, so whatever works best for you.

Rolling out a thin of white roll icing, I used a small 38mm scallop cutter. If in the cutting your
icing has become warm and a little flimsy, pop them in the fridge to set hard and flat again.

Decorate with a little red and green icing - I also added little red sugar balls as the holly:

Place this over the swirl and press down a little to attach:

You can also replace the chocolate buttercream with a white buttercream to create the icing if you are really short for time or not a fan of the rolled icing tops and add a holly and berry finish in the same way. I opted for white chocolate for the second design - my parents aren't fans of buttercream, so I added this straight to the tops of the cupcakes:

The third method involves removing the next 3 cupcakes from their cases and turning them upside down [much like the ghost cupcakes I made in October]. Add a small round of buttercream to the top:

...and then the icing top is placed over [cut slightly larger with a 68mm round cutter], but now falls at the sides, gently press to round them:

....then add a holly and berry decoration to the top to finish:

Again, you could replace the rolled icing with melted white chocolate, white icing pens or a small round of white buttercream, adding the holly and berry in the same way on top.

Simple cupcakes that look great – either as a gift, table favour, dessert or a snack for movie-watching:

Shall we mash the rest together and make some cake pops?

Ingredients: The general ratio I used is 1 tablespoon of buttercream to 4 cupcakes. Each cupcake produces 2 generous, 3 small cakepops. You can see my red velvet cake pops here.

Take the remaining 4 cupcakes and break them up in to a bowl to a crumb. Add a generous tablespoon of buttercream and mix the lot together. You now have no option but to get your hands involved - combine the mixture to a dough-like ball:

Once fully combined, take small amounts of the mixture and roll it between your hands to create little balls [you can actually use a teaspoon or tablespoon depending on the size of pop you want to create more uniform balls]. Leave these to one side on a tray lined with baking paper. Once you’ve finished your mixture, we can add the pop sticks – add a little buttercream to the end and this will help secure it to the cake ball. Adding your sticks will flatten the ball a little – this is fine as it provides a next area to add decoration later. Pop the balls in the fridge to set and harden for around 10 minutes, whilst you melt your milk chocolate.

Once the cake balls have set, dip them in to the chocolate to cover mainly the lower half of the cake pop – twist as you cover them [use a small spoon to help] and to remove any excess. Allow them to dry back on the tray – the lack of chocolate on the top half will mean that as the pops dry, the chocolate won’t run and gather at the top, where we will add some white chocolate later:

You can actually skip this step if it is a bit of a chocolate overload for you or you are time short. As long as your cupcakes and the buttercream were well mixed, the cake balls should keep their form and you can instead go straight to the icing tops.

As the cake pops dry, melt your white chocolate. With a small spoon [this method is very similar to the Christmas Pudding Marshmallows decoration] add a small amount of white chocolate to the top and using the side of the spoon, drag the edges in small sections to create a runny icing effect and leave to dry in a tall glass: