Spare Me Your Lies, Temptress! Your Emperor's Defeated, and I'm Immune to Your Bewitching Good Looks.

Disney Pixar # 11 - Toy Story 3

For the final instalment of the Toy Story Character Cupcakes, I was planning to make a whole bunch of the main crew... however, Angel suggested/requested that I make some strawberry flavoured Lotso cupcakes, and I couldn't very well say no! After all, everyone loves Lotso!

I actually have my own Lotso bear. He is over 2 years old now, but he stills smells like strawberries! I wanted to tap into that epic strawberry-ness, so I loaded my cupcakes full of them! Yum yum yum!

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 15-18 minutes
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
75g fresh strawberries
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
1 medium egg
100g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the filling:
150g home-made strawberry jam

For the icing:
150g butter
300g icing sugar
A few drops of strawberry flavouring
Pink and black food colouring

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases.
2. Wash and hull the strawberries, then blend them into a puree.
3. Beat together the margarine and the sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg and the strawberry puree until the mixture is light and fluffy, then fold in the flour and baking powder.
4. Fill each cupcake case around 3/4 full, then bake for 15-18 minutes until the cakes are golden brown on top and springy to touch. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool.
5. One the cakes have cool, cut a circle out of each cupcake to create a well in the centre - keep the cut-out bits to one side. Fill each cupcake with 1tsp of strawberry jam, then place the "lids" back onto the cupcakes.
6. To make the butter cream, beat together the butter and icing sugar until smooth and creamy. Add a few drops of strawberry flavouring, and a tiny bit of black food colouring and beat until you had a pale grey shade. Place the icing into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle, then pipe a circle of grey into the middle of each cupcake. Pour all of the remaining icing back into the mixing bowl, then beat in a little pink food colouring, adding more until you reach the desired colour. Pipe this onto the cupcakes in a circle around the grey icing.
7. Breathe in a big whiff of the strawberry goodness, then take a bite!

Next time it's the final instalment in the Disney Pixar collection so far: Cars 2!

Happy Thoughts
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