Delectables with Dan: Franken-Brain Berry Cakes!
Welcome back to the second spooky cupcake baking blog! We've got two more spook-cakes to go before we've finished with that. One is the last of the Halloween cereals and the other will be a surprise for you guys.
Today Pork Chop and I going to get fresh and funky with Franken-Berry! The cereal is a strawberry flavoured one with bits of berry marshmallow; I thought it was raspberry flavoured, which is why I used raspberry essence. They turned out amazing, but you can use a strawberry essence if you desire.
You will need a yellow vanilla cake mix and what you'll need to make one of those (eggs, oil, water), you're going to need 55g 1 1/2 c. of whole Franken Berry cereal. Separate the cereal from the marshmallows; don't put them into the batter, just the cereal bits. You'll need 15g or a 1/2c of marshmallows separated from the cereal. You will also need 1 small jar of raspberry essence (roughly 3-4 tablespoons) and red or pink food colouring. You will need to adjust your food colouring based on the shade you're using to get it a nice pale pink.
You're going to start off like we always do, mix, oil, eggs, water and mixed with an electric mixer. You don't want any lumps. Once you've mixed your ingredients together on a medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes it's time to add the raspberry essence. You can either use a tablespoon to measure it out or if you're using the small jar like is pictured above, pour all of it in. The colour of the essence does very little to influence the colour of the cake batter. I used a deep cherry red colour of icing because it's all that I had, I put in 1-1/2 tablespoons of the gel icing and mixed with the electric mixer for a minute an a half.
Today Pork Chop and I going to get fresh and funky with Franken-Berry! The cereal is a strawberry flavoured one with bits of berry marshmallow; I thought it was raspberry flavoured, which is why I used raspberry essence. They turned out amazing, but you can use a strawberry essence if you desire.
You will need a yellow vanilla cake mix and what you'll need to make one of those (eggs, oil, water), you're going to need 55g 1 1/2 c. of whole Franken Berry cereal. Separate the cereal from the marshmallows; don't put them into the batter, just the cereal bits. You'll need 15g or a 1/2c of marshmallows separated from the cereal. You will also need 1 small jar of raspberry essence (roughly 3-4 tablespoons) and red or pink food colouring. You will need to adjust your food colouring based on the shade you're using to get it a nice pale pink.
You're going to start off like we always do, mix, oil, eggs, water and mixed with an electric mixer. You don't want any lumps. Once you've mixed your ingredients together on a medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes it's time to add the raspberry essence. You can either use a tablespoon to measure it out or if you're using the small jar like is pictured above, pour all of it in. The colour of the essence does very little to influence the colour of the cake batter. I used a deep cherry red colour of icing because it's all that I had, I put in 1-1/2 tablespoons of the gel icing and mixed with the electric mixer for a minute an a half.
Once you've added the food colouring and the raspberry essence, it's time to add in the bits of cereal. Pour in your cereal and with a cooking spoon mix them into the batter, being careful to not break apart the bits of cereal. Christ, it looks like some sick kind of ectoplasm. Kinda feels like Pork Chop and I are in Ghostbusters here. THAT'S WHY THE COLOUR LOOKS FAMILIAR! THE FUCKING EVIL GOO THAT VIGO THE CARPATHIAN WAS PLAYING WITH! The mood slime. Oh, fuck me, this project has opened up a whole new dimension of ideas.
You want to make sure there's a few piece of the cereal at the top when you're filling the baking liners; As the cupcakes bake up, the cereal bits will puff up and give it a puffy brain appearance when they come out of the oven. Put them into the oven to bake at 190C/350 for 20 minutes or until the tops of the cupcakes are a golden brown-pink colour.
Beautiful little brain like cakes! If you can't wait to ice them, you can pop them in the icebox to chill as I have. Make sure that they're on a flat surface and not just stuffed in all willy-nilly. While these are chilling and or baking, depending on how you want to work this, it's time to make some icing.
FOR THE ICING YOU WILL NEED:
375g icing sugar
2 tablespoons of raspberry essence
1 tablespoon of vanilla essence
113g butter (unsalted or salted, it doesn't matter)
3 tablespoons double cream (US: heavy cream)
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1/3 of your icing sugar, your food colouring, 2 tablespoons of your double cream and your vanilla/raspberry essences. With an electric mixer on low-medium speed, start to combine the ingredients, scraping the bowl as you go. The mix will be a bright red-deep pink colour. That's normal. Add in the rest of your icing sugar, double cream and your butter. Cream together until icing becomes a bubblegum pink colour. The icing will be thick. Thick is a recurring theme on this blog and in the bedroom. Isn't it nice when certain parts of your life dovetail nicely? Never fails to amuse me.
Pork Chop loves to help, even if he does get a tad messy.
Now that you've made up your icing, carefully put it into your icing tool or an icing bag. Taking a medium-sized star tip, you're going to do quick little spirts or kisses on the top of each cupcake. Start on one side and work around the top of a cupcake in a circle, working your way inward. As the icing settles it will give it a nice brain appearance. (If you were to ice a brain on top of a flat cupcake the method would be different. Take a thick writing tip (looks like a pencil kinda) ice down the middle of the cupcake and on the side of the middle icing line, using a snake-like movement, pipe out your icing. It will look like a neat little brain drawing you see in kid's books. You're welcome.)
Once you have iced your cupcakes, take 5-6 of the marshmallows you separated out earlier to top them with. It gives them an extra little berry blast of flavour and kind of looks like some of the bits and pieces inside Frankenstein's head. And there we have it! Franken-Brain Berry Cakes!
I put them in the icebox to allow the icing to firm up further before putting them in a container to transport. You don't have to, it's just a precaution that I take when I'm going to be transporting cupcakes on public transit. Look at that bright bubblegum colour there! Despite cartoons and various other sources displaying the brain as a bright or dull pink colour, the human brain is actually a grey colour with a darker, almost black areas. I could have done that here, but grey icing isn't always appetising and the monster of the cereal is pink. I'd love to do a nice rich, black gothic cupcake with sugar bats...We'll have to see.
There will be some Halloween shaped and iced biscuits on the way later this week so keep an eye out for them! See you later, spooktastic bastards.
I can't find the one that I originally made the recipe with, but this works as a fine substitute.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cupcake-World-Intense-Flavouring-Raspberry/dp/B00EDJOJ7Y/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1508077490&sr=8-1&keywords=raspberry+essence+for+baking
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