Gruffalo Chocolate Cupcakes

Gruffalo Chocolate Cupcakes 

Ingredients

• 225g (8oz) Unsalted butter, softened
• 225g (8oz) caster sugar
• 225g (8oz) self-raising flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 4 eggs
• 2tbsp cocoa powder
• 100g (3.5oz) chocolate chips

Topping

• Chocolate frosting  (I cheated and bought shop bought ready made chocolate frosting!)
• Gruffalo rice paper toppers

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas mark 4)  Line a bun tray with 18-24 paper baking cases.

2. Place the butter, caster sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs and cocoa powder in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric whisk for 2-3 minutes, or until well combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips, spoon the mixture into the paper cases and bake for 18 minutes, or until well risen.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

3. Stir the chocolate frosting to soften and coat the top of each cupcake with the mixture.  Top with a gruffalo rice paper.

Makes 24

Gruffalo Crumble

The children and I went blackberry picking this morning.  We picked just enough to make our afternoon activity: Gruffalo Crumble!

Here is the recipe we used.  It is a Rachel Allen recipe from the Good Food channel website.

Ingredients

·         4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into big chunks

·         1 tbsp water

·         3 tbsp sugar

·         225g fresh or frozen blackberries, or mixed berries

For the crumble:

·         170g plain flour

·         75g butter

·         75g Demerara sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.

Put the apple chunks, water and sugar into a saucepan over a lowish heat and cook until the apples are soft and mushy; this should take about 10 minutes. While cooking, stir it every minute or so to prevent sticking. Taste and add more sugar if it needs it.

Transfer the apple pulp into individual bowls or one big pie dish and allow to cool slightly. Stir the berries into the apples.

To make the crumble, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles very coarse breadcrumbs. However, if you rub it too much the crumble will not be crunchy. Combine with the sugar. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the slightly cooled apple and bake for 15 mins for small crumbles or 30-45 mins for larger crumbles. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

I added some Gruffalo eyes, horns and a poisonous wart on top of the crumble which is made from sugar paste.

At the end it looked like this:

We all had a piece served with ice cream.  It was delicious!