Shamrock Cupcake Creatures & Lime Lemonade - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Many of us Kiwis have Irish heritage and so I am getting in the spirit of St Patricks day early this year! Keep an eye on the blog in coming weeks for continued inspiration!

Today I played on the concept of shamrocks with a lime twist. The secret to these shaped cupcakes is borrowing your childrens marbles. They will forgive you when they see the cupcakes! Prep your tins with cupcake cases before you start. You will need 72 marbles. I used a combination of brown foil cases and brown papers, both worked equally well.

Shamrock Cupcake Creatures (makes 24)

Cream together til light and fluffy:

1 c castor sugar

150g butter

1/4 t Key Lime oil flavouring

Whisk 3 eggs and add gradually to the creamed mix, scraping the sides regularly. Your mix will be light and creamy whipped texture.

Add to the mix:

1& 1/2 c flour, sifted

1 t baking powder, sifted
80ml lemonade

Fold ingredients together til the flour is just incorporated. Spoon half the mixture into a disposable piping bag and snip off the end. Fill the shamrock cavities 2/3 full with your piping bag, leaving space to rise. (This would be a messy job without the use of a piping bag!) Refill and repeat for second tray.

Bake at 175deg for 15-20mins. While cupcakes are in the oven you can prepare the frosting.

Lime Frosting

50g (1/2 pack) Go Bake Easy Frost powder
50g water
350g icing sugar
8 drops of Key Lime oil flavour
combination of Bright Green and Leaf Green Progel colours.

Follow Easy Frost packet instructions to achieve this yummy and creamy icing.

When cupcakes are cooked let them rest in their pans for 10mins before transferring to a cooling rack. Caution: the surrounding marbles will still be hot.

Trim the rounded tops of the shamrocks to create a flat surface to decorate. I popped my frosting into a piping bag with tip #48 to achieve this look. Three teardrop swirls work well.

Or you can use the same tip to cover the leaves in straight lines. Start by squeezing the 3 central ribbons then finish with the 6 outer ribbons as so...

To finish, these shamrocks have eyelash eyeballs and a mouth from wilton brown decorating icing. I used a tip #6 to pipe directly out of the tube. How convenient!

When they are adorned by eyes, any dodgy or wobbly piping can be covered up easily.These shamrocks have yet a different look using green eyes from the spooky set.

Here is a cute little lineup of shamrock cupcakes...

Since I had a bottle of lemonade open for the cupcake mixture anyhow, Sandra suggested making our own St Patricks flavoured fizzy to accompany the cupcakes, and man is it yummy!