I'm so cold, let me in at your window

My bestests and I have a bit of a long standing thing about Harry Potter. I think it all began around my 21st birthday when two of my friends were running around Liverpool on a night out acting like dementors (don't ask me how or why, but if you knew me and my friends you'd understand that explanations for matters like this are entirely unnecessary- we're as mad as a box of chocolate frogs). To celebrate one of the dementor's birthdays last weekend, Charlie and I made some Harry Potter inspired cupcakes for us all. Just to clarify, when I say Charlie and I, I mostly mean Charlie... she runs IronCupcake:Leeds so really I thought I'd best leave things up to the expert! That said, I did manage to lend a hand with a lot of the decorations so thought it'd be rude not to share our handiwork with you all since they turned out so well.

The cupcakes were 'butterbeer' flavour (that's butterscotch to all of you muggles out there!) and since my housemate enlisted Charlie to assist with making the same flavour cakes again a few days ago for a hen do I can share the secret recipe with you all! 

Butterbeer flavour Harry Potter Cupcakes

Ingredients

For the sponge:
6oz butter
6oz soft brown sugar
3 eggs
6oz flour

For the buttercream:
200g butter
400g icing sugar
1tbsp golden syrup

White ready-roll icing plus other colours for the decorations

First, preheat your oven to 180C.

Cream together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and mix well.

Gradually sift in the flour and mix together until everything is fully combined.

Add the mixture to cupcake cases (you should get somewhere between 12-15 cakes out of the mixture depending on how big your cases are!) and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until springy to touch.

For the icing

Add the butter and icing sugar to a bowl and mix well. 

Add the golden syrup and mix together until the mixture is smooth and creamy.

Pipe onto the cakes once the cakes have fully cooled.

Cut circles of white icing to fit the top of each cake. Decorate with the Pottiest of decorations and then add the circles to the tops of your cakes.

Applaud yourself for making something so yummy that would satisfy even Dumbledore's sweet tooth.

Wuthering Heights- Kate Bush

(this song became a bit of a highlight on Saturday night... we spent a lot of time flailing our arms about to this song)