Arizona cupcakes

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 25 cupcakes, you will need:

• 1 100 g butter
• 2 30 g caster sugar
• 3 10 g Vanilla sugar
• 4 100 g flour
• 5 2 eggs
• 6 1 pinch salt
• 7 5 g baking powder
• 8 100 g Marzipan (almond paste)
• 9 1 tablespoon icing sugar
• 10 150 g fondant icing
• Total weight: 610 grams

Times:

Preparation	Cooking	Start to finish
1 hour 14 min.	35 min.	1 hour 49 min.

Step by step recipe

1	Cut 100 g butter into small pieces and tip into the bowl of the mixer, along with 30 g caster sugar and 10 g Vanilla sugar.
2	Knead for a few minutes on slow speed until thoroughly mixed.
3	Then add 100 g flour, 2 eggs, 1 pinch salt and 5 g baking powder.
4	Knead again on medium speed just until evenly mixed. Preheat oven to 180°C (360°F).
5	Divide the mixture between small moulds, preferably in paper cake cases. Do not over fill as the cakes will expand during cooking. You can divide out the mixture with a spoon, but it's much quicker and easier to use a forcing bag.
6	Put in the oven and bake for around 35 minutes (watch for colouring). Leave to cool on a wire rack.
7	Meanwhile, make the cacti using green marzipan.
8	Melt 150 g fondant icing in a bain-marie. Note: if you don't have fondant icing, make up a quick glacé icing using 100g icing sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon water, or just a little more.
9	Spread icing over the cupcakes...
10	... and place a cactus on top immediately.
11	Decorate all the cupcakes like this.

Remarks

You can start with the basic cupcake mix and let your imagination run wild!
A quick variation: replace the marzipan decorations with pistachio paste, which gives a more realistic saguaro cactus colour.
For that real Arizona touch, the sun should make an appearance on the cupcakes, maybe as a small circle of yellow marzipan at the top to left or right of the cactus? Oh, well - for next time.

---