Ice Cream Cupcakes
A sneaky post – we made some Ice Cream Cupcakes “just because” (well, because I happen to buy some flat Ice Cream cones and they were perfect). These would be brilliant at a Summer Tea Party, at ANY child’s party and just perfect for April Fool’s Day too (shame we missed it this year!) – the never melting ice cream!
I have seen many variations of this ice cream cupcake over the years. These, I made as simple as possible and with a meringue topping, as Red Ted doesn’t like butter cream toppings nor does he like cream cheese ones. I guess a meringue is healthier too!
You will need:
* Flat ice cream cones (ours were actually quite small, if yours appear to be bigger, then the ingredients below may only make 6-8 cupcakes)
* Meringue ingredients – for 12
- 2 egg whites
- 50g caster sugar
- 50g icing sugar
- piping bag
- Sprinkles
- Additional icing sugar for “sticking”
* Cupcakes – for 12 (same vanilla cupcakes we like to make at Life At The Zoo!)
- 2 eggs (weighed, in our case: 130g)
- 130g self raising flour
- 130g sugar (I held a little back, as the ganache is super sweet)
- 130g butter
- A splash of milk (to make it smoother and easier to divide in the tins)
- Drop of vanilla essence
I suggest you make the meringues first, as then you can store these in a tin and then make the cupcakes fresh on the morning that you need them.
Meringues:
preheat the oven to 110C (medium heat)
1) Separate your eggs (add your yokes to this simple cookie recipe and avoid wasting them!) and beat your egg whites in a metal bowl until smooth and stiff.
2) Add your caster sugar and keep beating another 30-60 seconds.
3) Then fold in your icing sugar.
4) Get your piping bag and pipe onto grease proof paper. Pipe your ice cream tops – make sure they are wide enough to cover your cones.
5) Add your sprinkles
6) Bake in oven until they are starting to brown. Turn off oven and let cool in oven.
(These meringues will still be a little chewy in the middle)
Cupcakes:
preheat oven to 180C
1) I am super lazy… and tend to just chuck in all my ingredients and mix! If you find your dough is a little stiff, you can add a splash of milk to make it easier to work with. Done.
2) Add a table spoon full of mixture per cupcake (in our case, it filled the cone to about 1cm below the edge). The cupcake will rise.
3) Bake for 20-25min until the cupcake begins to brown. Again, leave to cool in turned off oven.
Once the cakes are fully cooled, I stuck the meringues on top with some icing sugar mixed with water.
Tuck in! The kids and the neighbour’s kids “couldn’t believe their eyes”… and tucked right in (sorry, no real decent photo opportunity). Funny how the “fun” is so important when you eat and bake for kids… and these cupcakes were no harder than any other ordinary cupcakes!