How to make cupcake cookies

Cupcake Belle came to visit DG Manor this week, bringing with her a delightful selection of pink baking tools and the promise of fun in the kitchen. Sadly she visited on the day that my Girls decided baking was ‘boring’ and could they play Lacrosse in the garden with Daddy? (How middle-class do I sound right now?) Which left me, in a pink spotty pinny too small to do up round my ample frame.

Fortunately I am pretty good at cookie making. I had them whipped up in no time, holding out hope that The Girls would get more interested in the decorating. But that was not the case either.

So my OCD-self and I got busy rolling out the fondant- which I love using. In fact Rachel Allen recently told me I have ‘excellent’ rolling technique. You’ll forgive me for name-dropping but that was a pretty big moment in my life and I will share it with anyone who listens, rather like the time I touched Colin Jackson.

Once rolled- and use cornflour to roll as icing sugar will only get absorbed and make the icing more sticky and less easy to work- I cut out the ‘base shape’ using a medium-sized cutter. After wetting the back of the fondant, I pressed the shape to the top of the cookie. Taking the same cutter I then cut the top half- just using the section I needed of the cutter on the edge of the rolled icing so that you just cut out the icing section rather than the whole shape- and welded that to the top of the base wetting the icing back with the same technique.

Whilst it was all a bit damp, I pressed down gently on the icing ‘top’ section, thus gently spreading it to a) cover the base colour and b) fit the ‘base’ area better. This looks more professional and makes it harder for the icing to fall off.

Finally I used balled up icing scraps to make a ‘cherry’ , pushed a few ball-shaped sprinkles into the top, and used the edge of a knife to cut lines into the base of the cupcake which represented the concertina you get from a cupcake case.

All ready in time for a school trip tomorrow and a bit of therapy for me ahead of BritMums Live this weekend.

Thanks Magic Belles for sending goodies and money for the ingredients I used to make my cookies. The Girls will be more co-operative next time. I hope.