Christmas Cupcakes

These beauties also make a very good alternative to mince pies - Nigella Lawson



The verdict: I'll second the alternative to mince pies view, not being a fan of them myself. These are hands down much better , in my view.

Unusual or substituted ingredients: These are almost a gingerbread cake - mixed spice, sour cream, coffee, chocolate - they're not really kiddie cupcakes. I made these for a grown up afternoon tea and they went down very well.

The cake in the center is Nigella's Spice Cake from Feast. It was RoseRed who was visiting at the time who came up with the idea to arrange them all on one plate and to use the left over white icing to ice the spice cake. Inspired!

I used Orchard White Icing instead of mixing up royal icing and I didn't use cranberries and green icing leaves as Nigella did. I used red and green glace cherries cut up by RoseRed!

Special utensils or cookware: I bought some special cupcake papers for these but other than that, nothing special.



Repeatability: These will be pulled out every Christmas until, well until forever. I intend to make them every year.

Sauciness: Oh they're delighful. I always think of decorated cakes as being a bit more for kids but I felt like RoseRed and I made these into a work of art!


Overall pleasure level: 10 out of 10. Perfect! If anyone wants to make these for Christmas, let me know. I'll hand out the recipe.