Sushi Cupcakes

Now before you wrinkle your nose in disgust, these sushi cupcakes are not savoury and are not made with fish. I was in a silly mood one night; I had just bought myself a mini muffin tin and a bag of fish-shaped gummies inspired this idea. Cupcakes that look like little sushi rolls, but are crunchy and sweet. It appealed to my inner child. I remember as a child, playing with my Mum's homemade bright blue playdoh and moulding it into little pieces of sushi (not that I had any idea what sushi tasted like, living in the Middle East at the time). I blame it on the one video tape of Simpsons episodes we had brought with us to Qatar, which I watched over and over as there was hardly anything on the free-to-air tv at the time. Remember the episode where the Simpsons go to a sushi restaurant and Homer eats fugu and then thinks he's going to die? Yeah.

So the thing I love about these is they are so simple to decorate and yummy. I have a feeling it would either be a big hit with the kids, or completely confuse the heck out of them. I definitely managed to confuzzle my workmates, offering them a whole platter of these and asking if they wanted some sushi. They sniffed at it, eyed it warily and asked "What...is it?" Heehee! It's just a regular vanilla cupcake topped with melted white chocolate mixed with rice bubble cereal and chopped up gummy lollies. Once they worked up the courage to taste them, they were a huge hit since they were moreish little bite-sized treats. One of my workmates even mentioned wanting to make them for her daughter's birthday party :)

Sushi Cupcakes
You will need:
1 quantity foolproof vanilla cupcake batter for full size cupcakes (or 1/2 quantity if only making mini muffin sized ones)
Green cupcake paper liners (or green fruit roll-ups to wrap around the cake if you can find it)
Rice bubbles
400g white chocolate
1 pack of various coloured gummy lollies

Bake cupcakes as per the foolproof cupcake recipe. With mini muffins, make sure to only half-fill the cupcake papers with batter, to make sure they do not rise too high and are easier to decorate. Allow to cool completely. In the meantime, cut equal sized cubes of gummy lollies with a sharp knife. (For the mini-muffins, I cut 0.5cm cubes of red, green and yellow gummies)

Can you tell I was in a silly mood that night?

Melt the white chocolate in small batches of about 100g at a time, to avoid it cooling and setting before you are finished spreading it over the tops of the cakes. Do this using a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water or in heated in a microwave for 30 seconds at a time until it is melted and smooth. Add rice bubbles to the melted chocolate and gently stir it in until it coats all the rice bubbles with a thin, even layer of chocolate. I think added about 1/2 cup of rice bubbles to each 100g of chocolate, but I would suggest to keep adding rice bubbles until it looks like the right texture you are looking for (enough rice bubbles so you can clearly see the texture of the 'rice' but enough chocolate to coat the cereal and hold the mixture together). Spoon the mixture over the top of your cupcakes.

Use a skewer or tip of a knife to dig a small hole in the middle of the 'rice'. Gently press your chopped up gummy lollies into the small hole to create the filling for your sushi. Leave these to set for a few hours. I made these in using full-size cupcakes and mini-muffins, and I definitely preferred the cute smaller version. I couldn't resist plating them up that night with some chopsticks and a bowl of vanilla 'soy sauce' haha! I probably could have done a lot more to make these look even more sushi-like, but it was late and I wanted to go to bed :P