Bring out the rum!

There is something very satisfying about successfully decorating a cupcake with a beautiful swirl of icing, and something especially satisfying about it when it contains as much rum as these guys! I really love cupcakes, I'm completely on the bandwagon of their resurgence. However I wasn't sure how they would go down with a bunch of people who are probably more grown-up in their cake preferences than I am. N has never complained when I've put a cupcake in front of him, but they're not exactly the most macho of treats. In fact they're probably the least macho treat ever, so I wanted to make a more adult version. How do you do that, make them as dark chocolate as possible and add lashings of alcohol. Oh yeah!

Since we weren't sure if our egg-allergic friend would be coming I decided to make most things without eggs anyway. No-one else would notice, and if she was coming she'd be able to eat almost everything. I chose a vegan chocolate cupcake recipe from my new book "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World" and then topped them with buttercream (made with normal butter as I didn't have any vegan marg) made with rum. I added rather more rum than they suggested (about twice as much as they recommended in fact!) and it was wonderful.

All my fears about non-macho cakes when out the window as they were quickly devoured by ladies and gents alike.


Rum Buttercream: Makes enough to ice 12 cupcakes with large swirls. You can halve the recipe if you don't want small rum mountains on top of your cupcakes. But honestly, what self-respecting person doesn't want a mountain of rum?

Adapted from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World"

1/4 cup softened butter (or vegan marg)
1 - 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar (I think I only used one in the end)
2 tbsp light rum (I used an organic spiced rum. mmm...)

Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy but still holding it's shape. Add the rum and beat until combined. If it's too wet to pipe add small increments of icing sugar until it's solid enough. Chill until ready to use.


P.S. I want to thank my Mum for the new piping kit. It's excellent, and having a second piping bag on hand (especially a posh one) was so useful.