Baking for Beginners: St Patrick's Pissed People Cupcakes

We often choose to celebrate St Paddy's big day with a couple of sherbets, a touch of the old rugger, followed by ... well, most probably a few more sherbets. Usually in a giant hat sponsored by Guinness. (We're judging you for ever wearing one of those.)

In honour of St Patrick's Day I've decided to make some simple sponge cupcakes (I opted for a dash of rum, but whiskey would certainly be more appropriate!) and let my ever-so-slightly-inebriated friends have a crack at decorating them in a suitably festive manner. I.e, making the cakes look like little pissed people. Splendid.



If you want to join in the fun ...

You'll need:

For the cupcakes:

• 125g plain flour
• 1 and a half tablespoons of baking powder
• 125g caster sugar
• 125g soft butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of rum or the liquor of your choice

For the decorations:

• Yellow, blue and red food colouring
• 100g butter
• 250g icing sugar
• More booze ...
• Icing pens, drunk people and, most probably, some more booze!

Make it!

• Preheat your oven to 160C. If you're half cut I strongly recommend you get a sensible grown up to do this for you.
• Blend the butter and sugar.
• Add the eggs (lightly beaten) and then the booze of choice, both a bit at a time and blend.
• Sift the flour and baking soda into the bowl and combine a figure-of-eight folding action. This adds air to the mixture and guarantees fluffy cakes. It's also super-fun to watch inebriated people try and make a figure of eight ...
• Divide the mixture into cupcake cases and pop into the oven for 12 minutes. That's about the length of time it'll take your most drunk friend to pass out on the sofa.
• Whilst your cakes are cooling blend the butter and icing sugar together until smooth, add some booze (just a drop as this will loosen your mixture) divide into different bowls and set about colouring each bowl a different colour using food colouring and your colour blending skills you learned at primary school. All together now .... yellow and blue makes ....?
• When the cakes are cool the fun really begins - give everyone a cake and some icing pens as well as some buttercream and let them do their worst!