I made these for my friend Michelle’s birthday, just as a bit of fun! The cupcakes are made in the same way as my Sticky Toffe Chocolate Steamed Puddings, and then decorated with icing. You could make any animal with any cupcake recipe as a base, but I’m going to show you how to make these cows from scratch.
Top tip: Use warm water to stick various bits of icing together.
Makes 8
Sticky Toffee Chocolate Steamed Puddings – 8
Readymade Icing – 2 packets, white
Pink Food Colouring – 2-3 drops
Black Food Colouring – 2-3 drops
Chocolate Buttons – 2 packets
1. First make the steamed puddings – just follow my recipe here. Allow them to cool before icing them!
2. Roll out the white icing into thin sheets, a few millimetres thick. I used one handful of icing for each cupcake, and one for each of the different colours. Paint one sheet black, and another one pink with the relevant food colouring and allow to dry for 30 minutes.
3. Make sure your steamed puddings have a flat base, and place on a dry surface. Cut a belt of white icing and press around the pudding making sure the sides are flush. Then cut out a circle the same size as the top of the pudding, and using warm water, smooth it on top whilst pinching together with the icing sides around the cupcake. You should have a completely covered white cupcake.
4. Next cut shapes from the remaining white icing – you’ll need 8 ‘faces’ and 16 ‘legs’. To complete the faces cut 8 oval pieces from the pink icing and press to ‘nostrils’ in. Press two wholes in the white face to make the eyes, and paint black with food colouring.
5. For the legs roll 16 pieces of white icing into cylinders. For the ‘hooves’ cut thin strips from the black icing and wrap around one end.
6. Stick all the parts on using warm water, and paint a mouth and ‘hair’ with black food colouring. Finish by creating the cows’ markings using the chocolate buttons.
