Brain Cupcakes

Hello, it’s Melissa here from Baking Makes Things Better.  I made these creepy looking brain cupcakes using Courtenay’s Kiddy Cupcakes recipe (I’ve copied the recipe below for ease).  They are quick and easy to make, and perfect for Halloween.  I injected the cupcakes with jam in the middle to look like blood.  The result is a cupcake that is super sweet and delicious, something you’d probably want to run towards rather than away from!

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 ½ cups flour
½ cup cornflour
4 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 cup strawberry jam

Buttercream:
250g butter softened
5 cups icing sugar, sifted
4-6 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Red food colouring

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180°C and line your baking tin with cupcake cases.
Cream the butter in sugar until light and fluffy, add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Sift the flour, cornflour and baking powder into a separate bowl.
Alternate adding the flour mix and milk & vanilla essence to the creamed mixture, beat on a low setting to combine.
Spoon the mixture evenly into cupcake cases. Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until a skewer can be removed cleanly or they bounce back to the touch.
Leave cupcakes to cool for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.

Once the cupcakes are cool, inject jam into the centre of each cupcake.

To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. Add the colouring to your mix and beat it in.
Fit a piping bag with a circular tip.  Draw a line with the icing across the middle of the top of a cupcake, then pipe a line around the perimeter of the cupcake from one side of the half way line to the other.  Repeat this process on the other side of the cupcake.  Fill each half with squiggles of icing, small zig zags from the centre to the outside of the cupcake look best.