This cupcake recipe shows how to make a cupcake decorated with meringue mushrooms that looks too good to eat!
Ingredients – 6/8 cupcakes
- 75g basic cupcake mix
- few drops vanilla extract
- Cocoa powder for dusting
- Vanilla buttercream – to cover the cupcakes
- Pistachio nuts to garnish
Meringue mix for the meringue mushrooms
- 1 egg
- 70g caster sugar
Getting everything ready
- Make a stiff meringue mix.
- Fill a paper piping bag fitted with a small plain tube with the meringue mix.
- Carefully pipe small blobs of meringue mix onto a flat baking tray fitted with non-stick baking paper or a non-stick mat – keep the meringue blobs the size of small button mushrooms.
- Fill a separate paper piping bag fitted with a small writing tube with some meringue mix and pipe small lines of meringue onto the baking tray.
- Damp the tip of your finger and smooth any peaks on the meringue.
- Lightly dust the meringue mix on the tray with cocoa powder.
- Place in a pre-heated oven at 100°C and allow to dry for about 2 hours until light and crispy. Remove and allow to cool – they will keep for several days in an airtight container
- Make the vanilla flavoured buttercream.
- Chop a few pistachio nuts.
- Make a basic cupcake mix with a few drops of vanilla extract for flavour. Bake and allow to cool.
Method
- Fill a paper piping bag fitted with a small star tube with the buttercream. Neatly pipe lines over the top of the cupcakes.
- Sprinkle the pistachio nuts around the edge.
- Lightly dust with cocoa powder.
- Use a cocktail stick to carefully make a hole under each meringue mushroom. Pipe a tiny amount of buttercream into the hole and gently fit with a meringue stalk.
- Arrange two or three meringue mushrooms on top of each cupcake.