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I recently went to Melbourne with some friends and while we were there, we went to see Wicked. The day of the show itself was Melbourne's hotted recorded day in history, (46.7 deg. c) and I bought at least one minty ice cream to keep me cool that day!

Any way, a few nights later we had a 'slide night' and pot luck dinner and the girls asked me to make some Melbourne themed cupcakes. Naturally, the first thing that popped into my mind was "MMMM- Minty Melted Elphaba cakes!" and thus the Wicked cupcake was born. It's a bit of a cheat's cupcake as it's mostly packet mix, but I have to say, this is one of my favourite cupcakes so far!


Ingredients

1 packet Edmonds Chocolate Cupcake Mix
60g butter at room temperature
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
Note: Refer to the ingredients on your cake mix packet! The above is what the Edmonds mix calls for, so if you use a different brand you might need other ingredients. Any good quality cupcake mix will do.

1 Kingsize block of Cadbury Milk Chocolate

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees c (or whatever your box instructions say) and line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper liners. Yes, you need to use a muffin pan for these, not a cupcake pan, as these are desert sized cakes.

Melt half your block of chocolate and put it aside to cool just a little. Combine the ingredients for your cupcake batter as per the instructions on the box, then add the melted chocolate. Beat for 3 minutes on high.

Divide the mixture evenly in your muffin pan. Break off 12 pieces of chocolate and place one in the centre of each cupcake, pressing the chocolate in slightly - don't push it in too far as it will sink to the bottom! Bake for 20 minutes, or for as long as your instructions state.

Chocolate Icing

1/8 c softened butter
120 g cream cheese
44 g chocolate broken into small pieces
tiny pinch salt
1.5 c icing sugar
1/4 cup cream
1/4 tsp vanilla essence


Heat the cream until it's just under boiling. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate to the heated cream. Stir until the chocolate is melted into the cream, then let the mix cool completely.

Cream together the butter and cream cheese. Add the melted chocolate mixture, salt, icing sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

Ice the cupcakes generously and put aside in a slightly warm place so the icing smooths out while you make the mint topping.

Mint Icing

1.5c Icing sugar
1/8 tsp mint essence
milk
green food colouring

Mix the icing sugar, mint and milk until you have a slightly runny consistancy. Add enough green food colouring so that the icing is a vibrant shade of green.

How to make the melted Witch!

This is the fun part! Once your cream cheese icing is smoothed, take a teaspoon of the icing mixture and start pouring it on, slightly to the side of the centre, so that it makes a small puddle that might resemble a melted witch. You want the icing to run naturally, so don't play with it too much, and don't cover the chocolate, you just want a contrasting puddle! Once you've added the mint icing, unwrap your Hershey's kisses, and pop them on top at a jaunty angle, pressing lightly so it sticks.

I'm currently addicted to Subway's macadamia cookies, so I took my white chocolate cupcake recipe and embellished it a bit!

Ingredients

125 g unsalted butter
1/2 c castor sugar
3 eggs
80 g white chocolate bits
3/4 c plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinammon
1 c finely chopped macadamia nuts

Line a 12 hole cupcake tray with wrappers. and preheat your oven to 180C.

Sift your dry incredients into a bowl, along with the chopped macadamias. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each.

Slowly add the dry ingredients then beat for 4 minutes on high.. Add the white chocolate pieces and mix for a further minute or until they're well distributed.

Divide the batter among the cases and bake for 20 minutes or until cakes spring back when lightly pressed.

Icing

2 c icing sugar
1/4 c cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
50g bar of white chocolate, melted
water

Combine all the ingredients except for the water - slowly add the water until the icing is the right consistancy.

The pineapple cupcake went down a treat, but mum's now pushing the boat out by wanting a beetroot cupcake! This recipe uses canned beetroot because I'm far too lazy to cook a raw one, and has a chocolate fudge icing just to make me happy...


Ingredients

1 can sliced beetroot (approx 400g)
125 g butter
3/4 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 c self raising flour
1/4 c cocoa
1/4 c milk
100 g dark chocolate, finely chopped





Preheat your oven to 180 C and line 2 x 12 hole cupcake tins.

Drain the beetroot and finely chop in a processor or with a hand blender. Sift the flour and cocoa into a small bowl. Put both the beetroot and the sifted ingredients to the side for now.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time until fully combined. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mix on a slow speed, then add the milk and beetroot. Pop the chocolate into the microwave until it's mostly melted, then add to the batter. Beat on high for 4 minutes.

Bake for 25 minutes or until the cupcake spring back lighty (I find they take about 1/2 hr in my oven).

Note: You do not need to melt the chocolate if you prefer chunks!

Icing

50g butter
50 g dark chocolate
3 TBS milk
1 TBS vanilla essence
2 c icing sugar
4 tsp cocoa powder

Place the butter, chocolate, milk and vanilla into a small pan, and heat on a low heat until melted. Remove from heat and let the mix cool for a few minutes.

Sift the sugar and cocoa into bowl, then add the chocolate mix. Beat until smooth, then place in the fridge for around 10 minutes, or until it thickens enough to spread.

These cupcakes instantly make me visualise summer! I'm not a big fan of hot spice, so I reduced the amount of chili by about 70% and added some white chocolate to 'cool the mouth' just like milk would.

Very tasty, very pretty (especially if you add a couple of cocktail umbrellas to the plate for some extra spunk) and a great talking point!


Ingredients

1 c flour
1/2 c sugar
1/3 c butter
3/4 c milk
1/2 c white chocolate chips (or 1 small milky bar!)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chili powder (increase this if you like more bite)
1 egg
1 fresh mango roughly cubed OR
3/4 canned mango roughly cubed
1/4 cup mango pulp (if fresh mango) or juice (if canned mango)

Preheat oven to 175 and line a 12 hole cupcake pan. Heat the milk in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water until it's just below boiling. Remove from the heat and add the white chocolate to the milk, stirring until it melts completely. Let the mixture cool completely before moving to the next step.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg, stirring until combined. Add flour, baking powder, chili powder, and salt to the mixture.
Next, add the cooled chocolate milk and mango juice/pulp and beat until well combined. Finally, fold in mango.

Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way full with the batter, trying to spread the mango chunks evenly if you can. Bake about 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Icing

120 g cream cheese
1 1/2 c icing sugar
1 TBS lime juice
1 drop green food coloring

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and icing sugar until it's smooth. Add the lime juice, then just enough green food colouring to give the icing a pale lime colour. Mix again until blended.

The name of these speak for themselves! They're also super easy to make, and can really be used with just about any type of icing. I go with strawberry, because really, what's better than white chocolate and strawberry?

Ingredients

125 g unsalted butter
1/2 c castor sugar
3 eggs
80 g melted white chocolate (I just do this in the microwave!)
3/4 c plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Line a 12 hole cupcake tray with wrappers. and preheat your oven to 180C.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each (this makes the mixture light and fluffy) then add white chocolate and stir to combine.

Sift flour and baking powder over cake batter and fold in until combined. Divide the batter among the cases and bake for 20 minutes or until cakes spring back when lightly pressed.

Icing

1 egg white
1 c icing sugar
3 c fresh strawberries pureed OR
1 c strawberries in syrup pureed (drain the syrup first)

Beat the egg white until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in icing sugar, then the pureed strawberries. Mix until combined.