Recipe: Drumstick Cupcakes

So a few weeks back I was scrolling through the explore page of Instagram and stumbled across a post that was showing the newly released Drumstick flavoured icing available in supermarkets. And that sparked an idea for a recipe which I've been putting off for weeks, due to immense worries about messing it up when in fact I had nothing to worry about. I made them for the first time on Wednesday and by Friday they were all gone.

Ingredients
100g Caster Sugar
100g Stork, softened
100g Self Raising Flour
2 Eggs
2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Tub Of Drumstick Icing
12 Drumstick Squashie Sweets

Method 
1- Pre heat your oven to 180C. Line a twelve hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2- Place the softened stork and caster sugar into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. I always use my stand mixer to bake as it takes out a lot of the arm work and is generally quicker than doing it by hand/ However a wooden spoon or silicone spatula would work perfectly as well to cream the two together.
3- Add one egg at a time alongside a tablespoon of flour. Beat until fully incoporated, then repeat. I also took the opportunity to scrap a silicone spatula along the sides to make sure everything gets fully incorporated into the mixture.
4- Fold the rest of the flour into the mix, making sure to not knock any of the air out of the mixture. If you're using a stand mixer, I recommend using the slower settings at the start of the dial to fold the flour in. It'll get the job done and gives you the choice to speed it up or slow it down.
5- Then add the vanilla. You can fold this gently into the mixture if you wish but I personally like to use a faster speed on my mixer to make sure it's fully incorporated into the mixture. A faster speed doesn't knock out any of the air I've put into the mixture but if you prefer to use a slower speed that's just as good. It's all personal preference.
6- Spoon the mixture into your cake cases. You can use a tablespoon to do so or a batter scoop to get a more even amount of mixture in each case. I use a batter scoop just so the mixture is evenly distributed between the cases.
7- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean and the cake springs back once touched. Leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes and then place onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
8- The icing is already made which is cheating but I would have never been able to produce something that tastes this good. The icing comes in two tubs, one tub raspberry and one tub vanilla. I wanted it to be the two combined and swirled together on top of the cakes so I alternated a tablespoon of each into the piping bag until I had the amount of icing I needed.
9- Then with a steady hand, pipe the icing onto the top of the cakes. You can go with any design you like but because I wanted the two flavours to swirl together I went with a classic swirl design. Once your happy with your design, place a drumstick flavoured squashie on top of each cake and place to one side to set.
10- Once you've done all twelve, place in a airtight container to set and then enjoy whenever you want.