Coca Cola Cupcakes Recipe!

Ingredients

For the sponge cakes:
200 grams of plain flour
250 grams of caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon (the little spoon) of bicarbonate of soda (this will help the cakes rise – but only use 1/2 a teaspoon – any more and your cakes will taste very strange!)
1 large egg
125 ml of buttermilk’*’(or warm up 125 ml of full fat milk in a pan with a squirt of lemon juice, it just needs to be hand hot.)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
125 grams butter 2 tablespoons (the big spoon) of cocoa
175 ml of cola

Buttermilk is basically sour milk. That’s why we can make it by mixing a bit of lemon juice with ordinary milk and warming it up. When sour milk is mixed with bicarbonate of soda, millions of tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide are produced. These bubbles expand even bigger when in the oven and make your cakes delicious and light.

For the icing

225 grams of icing sugar
30 grams of butter
3 tablespoons of cola
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 packet of cola bottle sweets - either the jelly ones or the fizzy sugary ones, which ever you prefer!

Equipment

Large bowl & Spoon

Measuring jug

A large pan (preferably one with a heavy base, to stop the ingredients burning)

Cupcake Tray & paper cases

A sieve (to get the lumps out of the icing sugar)

What to do

(The trick is to mix the dry ingredients,  then the wet ingredients and then mix them all together at the last minute.  This will stop the cakes becoming heavy.)

1.  Put the paper cases into the tray.  Heat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade/Gas Mark 4.

2.  In a large bowl, mix the flour with the sugar, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

3.  In a pan, gently heat the butter, cocoa and cola until the butter is just melted.

4.  In a measuring jug beat the egg, with the buttermilk and vanilla.

5.  Pour the butter mixture into the flour and then add the egg mixture.   Mix this with a wooden spoon until the flour is all mixed in.

6.  Spoon the mixture into the papers cases, filling them slightly less than half full.   You will need to make two trays of cakes. If you have two cake trays, you can cook them all at once, otherwise just cook them separately.

7. Check the cakes after about 10 minutes. They are ready when they are risen, and are firm and slightly bouncy when you just them in the middle.    If they are not quite cooked, give them five more minutes then check them again.  When they are ready, put them out to cool, on a cooling tray if possible.

8.  Whilst the cakes are in the oven, start the icing.  Rinse out the pan and large bowl that you used before. In the pan, put the butter, cola, cocoa powder and vanilla extract for the icing.   Stir it over a low heat until the butter is just melted.

9.     Get a sieve and put it over the large bowl.   Add the icing sugar to the sieve and by tapping the sieve, the icing sugar will fall through the tiny holes into the bowl.  Keep tapping the sieve until only lumps are left then press these lumps through with your fingers.      (Note from Jazzy’s mum – sieving the icing sugar is not the most exciting job, but you HAVE to do it for this recipe. Otherwise you will end up with lumpy icing which will not look or taste nice.)

8.  Using a large spoon, add the sugar to the mixture in the pan and stir well.   You will end up with a thick brown icing, that looks a bit like brown margarine.     But it should taste much much nicer!

9. Using a spoon, dollop icing on top of each of the cakes and smooth it over with the back of the spoon.   It is best to do this when the cakes are still warm from the oven and the warmth will make the icing melt a little and go smooth.

10. Put a cola bottle sweet on top of each cake.