Christmas Pudding Cake and Winter Cupcakes

Each pud is made of chocolate sponge cake on a black icing base, coated in chocolate buttercream, all covered in chocolate flavoured fondant and decorated with more icing and edible lustre. The cupcakes are chocolate sponge topped with a little buttercream and black fondant, finished off with sparkly icing shapes.

Oh, and everything is dairy-free, even the buttercream.

These took a very long time and I can't write up an overly detailed recipe if nobody's going to read it, but if you want to recreate these you will need:

Ingredients - Golden caster sugar, self-raising flour, eggs, good quality cocoa powder (I used Green & Black's), unsalted butter (sunflower or soya spread for dairy-free), milk (or almond milk), white fondant icing, chocolate flavoured fondant icing, black fondant icing, red food colouring gel, dark green food colouring (I use Moss Green by PME), icing sugar, edible glue, edible silver lustre.

Equipment - Mixing bowls, electric whisk, measuring spoons, scales, non-stick rolling pin, baking parchment, hemispherical moulds, muffin tin, cupcake cases, spatula, sharp knife, round or fluted cookie cutter, palette knife, shaped plunger cutters (I used Daisy by Lakeland, Holly by PME and Snowflake by PME), convection oven, cooling rack, mini paintbrush.

1. Take a chunk (about 3" x 1") of white fondant and roll in your hands until soft. Squeeze 3-4 drops of green colouring onto it, and fold and roll the icing for several minutes until the colour is spread evenly. Your hands will get messy, but it will wash off. If the icing becomes sticky, roll it in a little icing sugar and continue. Roll out the icing on a sugared surface until it is less than 5mm thick, then use a holly plunger to cut out as many holly shapes as you need. I cut three and used the remaining icing for leaves, which I can use at a later date. Repeat with black icing and more white icing to make your chosen shapes, and finally adding a drop of red colouring to a small cube of the white icing and rolling into tiny balls for berries. Leave the icing to harden on a plate overnight.

2. Make a standard chocolate sponge batter, enough for at least 12 cupcakes or a large cake. Grease the hemispherical moulds and coat with a little cocoa powder, and spoon the mix into each dome until there is a ~1.5cm gap to the top. Pop some cupcake cases into the muffin tin and half-fill as many as you can with the remaining mix. Bake at 180C for 14 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when prodded. Remove from the oven and place on the cooling rack; leave the domes in the mould until completely cooled.

3. Make the buttercream in a large bowl. Where you would use butter and icing sugar at a ratio of 1:2, replace a third of the icing sugar with cocoa powder. Add a tablespoon of milk (or dairy-free alternative) and whisk until light. If the mixture won't form peaks, add a little cocoa and repeat. When the dome cakes have cooled, pop them out of the mould and roll out about 120g black icing. Use a round cookie cutter about the same diameter at the mould to cut out circles as bases. Use a sharp knife to cut off any 'bumps' where the cake has risen, to leave you with a decent half-sphere. Using a spoon, coat the base circles with buttercream, not going quite to the edge. Put each upturned dome cake in place, then use a palette knife to coat each one as smoothly as possible with buttercream. Refrigerate for 20 minutes, then smooth further. Roll out the chocolate icing and cover each cake, pressing down the edges as evenly as possible (this is hard and near impossible to get seamless along the bottom, trim as you go if it helps). Refrigerate until they can be decorated further.

4. Roll out more white icing to your preferred thickness and, using a sharp clean knife, cut out a 'splat' shape to top each cake. Roll out the remaining black icing and use a fluted cookie cutter to cut out the topping layer for the cupcakes. Dip a thin paintbrush (one that has never been used with paint) into a pot of edible lustre and brush lightly over the black icing toppers, and then over the hardened holly leaves and white shapes. Clean the paintbrush and allow to dry.

5. Top the pudding cakes with the white splats, pressing down gently. Spoon a little buttercream onto each cupcake and press the icing tops into place. Dip the paintbrush into a pot of edible glue and 'paint' a small circle on the top of each cake. Attach the holly leaves immediately, holding in place for a few seconds if necessary. Do the same for the cupcakes, adding the black and white shapes. Finally, paint a little glue into the centre of each holly shape and top with three icing berries. Done!

So yeah, effort went into these Especially as a couple of them were gifts, I wrapped them in cellophane tied with ribbon and they did look good. They tasted yummy too, very chocolatey but much preferable to traditional Christmas pud!

Link to the contest journal: fav.me/d6qvsm4