Rubber duck cupcakes

My youngest daughter birthday was coming. As she loves to play with her rubber ducks during bath time, I was thinking about rubber duck cake for her birthday, till I sow ' What's New, Cupcake ?' book. At first I thought rubber duck cupcakes are far to complicated to me, but when I found this movie on line I have decided to try. 

 

My ducks do not look as pretty as the one in the movie but some products where not available for me so I had to replace them.

I have started with baking lemon cupcakes from Rachel Allen 'Bake' recipe.

Ingredients for 12 medium sized cupcakes and 10 mini cupcakes:

• 125g soft butter
• 125g caster sugarr
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 2 eggs
• 150g flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Butter cream:

• 100g soft butter
• about 200g icing sugar
• yellow food colouring in liquid

Additional:

• for beaks and feet - soft candy, orange coloured
• eyes - chocolate chips
• duck tails  - marshmallows
• edible glue
• toothpicks

First I baked cupcakes.

Preheat oven to 180C. Line muffin tin with yellow paper cases. Grease mini muffin tin. I had to bake mini muffins as I could not find mini doughnuts in any shop. The authors of this recipe used mini doughnut as duck's head.

In electric mixer cream the butter until soft add the sugar and lemon extract beating continuously until light and fluffy. Add the eggs beat for a while. At the end gently fold in the flour and baking powder. Spoon the batter into muffin cases 3/4 full, so they rise up to the height of paper cases. Bake for 15-20 min. Check with a toothpick if baked in the middle. The rest of the batter spoon into mini muffin tin 3/4 full as well. You should receive 10 mini cupcakes. Bake 10-15 min. Cool them down on wire rack.

In the meantime prepare butter cream. Again in electric mixer cream the butter until soft and fluffy gradually adding icing sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed. Add food colouring, mine was liquid so I used 4 tsp. If you use paste then add 1 tbsp of milk or lemon juice to cream.  

At this stage all parts of ducks are ready. They only need to be put together.

Rubber duck cupcake step by step:

1. Take one cupcake and mini cupcake
2. With a knife shape the mini cupcake to receive nice head
3. Cut a marshmallow in diagonal
4. Using edible glue stick head and tail to cupcake (see above). Put on a side
5. Take half of a soft candy cut in half, with your fingers create a beak
6. With toothpick attach the beak to duck's head
7. With knife cover duck with butter cream, try to make it look like a feathers
8. Attach chocolate chips on the sides of duck's head as eyes

Diving rubber duck step by step:
As I had only 10 heads for 12 ducks two of them are diving under water.

1. Cut a marshmallow in diagonal and with edible glue attach to cupcakes
2. Cut a soft candy in a half and use each to make a duck foot.
3. Cover duck with buttercream 
4. Place two feet on the sides of tail.

I have to admit it was hard work. But my birthday girl was very happy. She ate her duckling immediately.

BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT TOOTHPICKS IN DUCKS. When you serve duck to a child remove the beak, throw away toothpick, and place the beak on the side of duck.

Vanilla cup cakes with buttercream

This recipe comes from Rachel Allan 'Bake" cookbook. You have to believe me they not only look good but they are very tasty too :)

 

Ingredients for 12 cup cakes:

• 125g butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 150g flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Heat up the oven to 200C. Line 12 hole tin with paper cases.

In electric mixer cream the butter until soft. Add the sugar and vanilla extract, blend together until soft and fluffy. Then add the eggs one at a time blending continuously. At the end add flour and baking powder.  Spoon into paper cases. Bake 8-12 min until golden and spongy. Cool them down on a wire rack.

Ingredients for buttercream:

• 150 ml milk
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 175g soft butter
• 1tsp vanilla extract

Place the milk and sugar into sauce pan. Heat it up until the sugar dissolve. Stir all the time. Bring it to a gentle boil. In separate bowl whisk the yolks. While whisking pour small amount of milk onto the yolks. Then return the mixture to the sauce pan. Heat it up again stirring all the time. The mixture should get thicker, it should coat back of the spoon you stir with. It can last up to 10 min. You should avoid  the mixture to get too hot or it will scramble (if it does immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour it through sieve). Let the mixture cool down to room temperature. You can place sauce pan in bigger container filled with cold water, as this will speed up cooling down process. In a mean time in electric mixer cream the butter until soft and light. Gradually add the almost cooled  custard to the butter, whisking all the time, until it is combined. Add the vanilla extract.

Then spoon or pipe buttercream on top of each cup cake.

I piped the cream on top of 6 cup cakes. The other six I decorated differently, I cut off the cup cake hill,  then piped cream on the remaining cup cake and then placed the half into cream as if they were butterfly wings.