Ice Cream Soda Cupcakes

In my previous post I mentioned how I had been busy experimenting and failing miserably in my kitchen. It was all because of creaming soda. I LOOOOVE creaming soda. It's so sugary and addictive. Creaming soda is on par with red cordial for it's ability to make kids go super crazy sugar high hyperactive. I didn't realise that it came in so many forms - here in Australia it's bright pink and is awesome with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It's intensely sweet and I've been drinking way too much of it recently. My recent obsession with it has spawned all these crazy creaming soda baking ideas. The first was a creaming soda macaron, but that was where I failed miserably. It turned out that it was really hard to get the flavour of creaming soda into a macaron, and that creaming soda itself has a very mild flavour, especially after it has gone flat. So many failed creaming soda buttercreams, icings, ganaches and macaron shells in the bin :(

But during my experimenting, I did notice that one easy way of successfully retaining the flavour of creaming soda was in jelly form. And I love jelly. It's so wobby and fun and makes cakes look cool. So I forced myself to give up on the macaron idea (for the moment) and adapt it into something just as cute and much, much easier to do - cupcakes! And yes, I've done cupcakes with decorative, non-functional straws in them before with the ginger beer cupcakes, but I can't help myself, it looks so cute!

The toppings do make the cupcakes a little too difficult to eat straight out of your hand, so it's definitely better to serve with some spoons. I happened to have these cute little pyrex baking cups which I thought would be appropriate, and they were definitely easier to eat out of compared to the ones I used paper cupcake liners for. So if you have some individual silicone, glass or ceramic baking cups I would definitely recommend you use them for this recipe. The cherry and straw complete the look, I think they would be so great for a kids birthday party. There's not much flavour of the creaming soda in the cupcakes, so you need to heap on lots of that awesome tasting jelly to have with the cake to get that creaming soda taste. If you can't use ice cream because you want to transport the cakes, just top with some whipped cream instead.

Ice Cream Soda Cupcakes
(makes 10-12 medium cupcakes, 6-8 large cupcakes)
500ml creaming soda
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp powdered gelatine

125g unsalted butter, softened
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
225g self-raising flour, sifted
100ml creaming soda
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
pink food colouring

To serve: Vanilla ice cream.
Optional: Glace cherries & plastic straws to decorate

Make the creaming soda jelly:
Place 100ml of creaming soda and the tbsp of caster sugar in a small saucepan and gently bring to the boil. Add powdered gelatine and stir to dissolve completely over the heat. Add the remaining 400ml of creaming soda and pour the mixture into a wide shallow bowl or tin. Place in the fridge and chill until set (2 hours-overnight).

For the cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well to combine after each addition. Add vanilla essence and food colouring and beat a little more. Fold in flour and creaming soda gently with a spatula, then spoon mixture into a lined cupcake tray, or into greased individual baking cups/ramekins. Make sure they are no more than 3/4 full. Bake in oven for 15-20 mins for a regular sized cupcake 20-25 mins for a larger cupcake (as seen in this post).

When you are ready to serve the cupcakes, carve a hole in the top of the cupcakes so there is a well to place the jelly in. Dice up the jelly and spoon it on top of the cake and top off with a small scoop of ice cream, cherries and a straw. Cupcake and jelly can be stored separately for a couple of days, jelly in the fridge, cupcakes in an airtight container.