Christmas recipe : Christmas tree cupcakes

These were made as a kids' activity when Pierre invited some of his friends over on a playdate and the guests were too impatient for the cakes to totally cool so the icing melted slightly. They were great fun to make though and you can still tell that they're supposed to be Christmas trees ! We made chocolate cupcakes but any basic homemade or shop-bought cupcakes would do as a base.

Christmas tree cupcakes

ingredients :

for the cupcakes :

115g margarine (or you could use softened butter - I used a buttery spread as it was easier for the kids to work with)

115g sugar

115g self-raising flour

2 eggs

3tbsp cocoa powder

pinch of salt

for the decoration :

55g margarine

200g icing sugar

green food colouring

marshmallows (large ones, not minis)

small round coloured sweets

cocktail sticks

Mix together all the cake ingredients in a bowl, put a couple of spoonfuls in each cupcake case and bake for about 15-20 minutes (depending on size) at 180° until springy to the touch. Leave to cool. Our mini-chefs were very impatient so it might be an idea to do this step in advance, or even use shop-bought basic cupcakes.

Cut two corners off each large marshmallow to make a rough triangle shape. Use a cocktail stick (or cupcake topper) with a silver star on top to fix it to the top of the cupcake.

Mix together the icing ingredients until you get a firmish texture. Add extra icing sugar if it's too runny. Use a piping bag (or just a spoon if it's easier) to coat the marshmallow in icing so that it looks like a Christmas tree.

Top with tiny coloured sweets as baubles. Don't forget to warn people (especially children) that's there's a cocktail stick lurking in there before they take a big bite ! They're great fun to make and I thought they were far too sickly sweet but the kids loved them !

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up the end of a bag of marshmallows that everyone had got sick of eating !