And We Call It Bella Notte

Disney Classic # 15 - Lady and the Tramp

I love looking at photos of cakes, especially novelty cakes, so it probably comes as no surprise that I often buy cake decorating books. Before I ever dreamed of "Disney movie nights" I had found a very, very cool "spaghetti and meatballs" cupcake recipe in one of my cake books, and I've been waiting for an excuse to make them. Well, then the Disney nights started, and what better reason could I possibly have for making spaghetti and meatball cupcakes than in honour of this classic scene from the movie:

I found the original idea in Karen Tack and Alan Richardson's Hello Cupcake! but used my usual recipes for vanilla cupcakes and vanilla buttercream. These cakes looked great, but with all the icing, the jam and the chocolate piled on top they were very sweet and sickly! We also found them quite messy to eat, and most of us ended up using a fork or spoon - expect a very gooey and very sweet cupcake!

Prep time: 30 mins      Cook time: 20 mins      Serves: makes 9 cupcakes

Ingredients:

100g margarine
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour
1 medium egg
Few drops of vanilla essence
12 Ferraro Rocher chocolates
250g strawberry jam
150g unsalted butter
350g icing sugar
Drop of milk
A little white chocolate, for grating

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with white cupcake cases.
2. Cream the margarine and caster sugar together in a large bowl. Sift in the flour and fold this into the mixture. Add the egg and vanilla essence to the mixture and beat well until all ingredients have combined.
3. Carefully spoon one tbsp of cake mixture into each cupcake case (this made 9 cupcakes) and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and firm to touch.
4. Remove the cakes from the oven and set to one side to cool.
5. Whilst the cakes are cooling, make the butter cream. Beat the butter in a large bowl to soften. Sift in a little of the icing sugar and beat into the butter. Continue adding the icing sugar a little at a time until it is all combined. Add a drop of milk to the mixture to soften it, if required, and beat in some vanilla essence.
6. Once the cupcakes have cooled, cover each one in a thin layer of butter cream. Place the rest of the butter cream in a piping bag and pipe "spaghetti" onto the cupcakes. This actually looks better if you do it roughly, allowing some pieces to hang over the edges and overlapping the icing, rather than if you try to keep it neat and tidy.
7. In another bowl, stir the jam until it gets runny. Unwrap the Ferraro Rocher's and drop each one into the jam. Using a tablespoon, scoop one "meatball" (Ferrero Rocher) and some jam out o the bowl and place this on top of the "spaghetti" spoon any left over jam onto the cupcakes. Note: I used one "meatball per cupcake, plus an extra "meatball" on the serving dish or resting in the middle of the cupcakes, for decoration
8. Grate a little white chocolate over all of the cupcakes, serve and enjoy!

Next time we're watching Sleeping Beauty, and I'll be testing out my piping skills to make something pretty ^_^

Happy Thoughts
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