Mystic Moon Cupcakes

Preheat a fan-forced oven to 140°C (275°F) or a conventional oven to 160°C (320°F). Line two cupcake tins with the cupcake liners.

Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to a large mixing bowl and mix with a hand mixer until well combined.

Next, add the softened butter and mix on low speed until the mixture reaches a crumbly, sand-like texture.

Add the eggs, milk, oil, yoghurt and vanilla, and mix on low speed until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Scrape down the side of the bowl and mix for a final 20 seconds. It’s at this point that you can add any flavourings or food-gel colourings to the batter.

Split the batter into three separate bowls. To make the grape batter add the grape flavouring, purple and pink food gel. Mix until well combined. To make the banana batter add the yellow food gel and banana flavouring. To make the Bubble-gum batter add the bubble-gum flavouring and teal food gel.

Add the three batters to separate piping bags and snip off a small piece of each one. Pipe squiggles of each one into your cupcake tin lined with white cupcake liners until they’re filled about ¾ of the way.

Bake for 40–50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Add the white chocolate to a large microwave safe bowl and microwave for 20 seconds at a time, mixing each time until smooth. Add the pink candy colour food gel and mix until well combined. Please note: the food gel used for this part of the recipe is not regular food gel. This is one is specifically used to colour chocolate.

For the next step you’ll need a sphere mould. You can use a hard plastic one or a silicone one. The one I used is a Polycarbonate Half-Sphere Chocolate Mould Half-Sphere measuring 50mm with 8 Cavities. Pour the melted pink chocolate into the mould filling each cavity up full. Then give the mould a gentle wiggle to help any air bubbles rise to the top.

Turn the mould upside down onto a baking tray and let the excess chocolate drip out of the mould. Then use a cake scraper to scrape away excess chocolate from the top of the mould.

Chill in the fridge for 40 minutes. The chocolate half spheres should come out very easily from the mould once chilled. To complete the mould add one half of the chocolate mould onto a small round cookie cutter. Add about 1 ½ tsp of cake pop into the sphere and then add some melted chocolate around the top of the chocolate. Place another half sphere on top and use your finger to go around the sphere to wipe away excess chocolate. Repeat to make all 15 spheres. Chill in the fridge until ready to use.

To prepare the frosting, split it into three separate bowls. To make the grape frosting add the grape flavouring, purple and pink food gel. Mix until well combined. To make the banana frosting add the yellow food gel and banana flavouring. To make the Bubble-gum frosting add the bubble-gum flavouring and teal food gel.

Add the three frostings into three separate piping bags. Snip off a small bit of the end and pipe lines of the frosting next to each other on a large piece of plastic wrap. Once you’ve piped about 15 lines roll the plastic wrap up into a log. Snip off one end with scissors and place the snipped end into a large piping bag fitted with a Wilton 6B piping tip.

Core the centre of each cupcake and fill with sprinkles and sherbet powder.

Pipe a double donut swirl of frosting on each cupcake. Sprinkle with silver star sprinkles and then carefully place the bubble-gum sphere on top. It’s important that you make sure the frosting is fairly stiff before you add the frosting on top. If your frosting is soft, place the frosted cupcakes in the fridge for 20 minutes before you place the spheres on top. If it’s a warm day, keep the cupcakes refrigerate and thaw 20 minutes before you serve them.

To make the bubble-gum cake pop cake follow the same process as the cupcakes. Replace the food flavourings and food gels with the bubble-gum flavouring and teal food gel.

Add the batter into a 9x9 inch cake tin lined with baking paper and bake for 40 minutes on 140C.

Once baked and completely cooled, crumble the cake using clean hands into a large mixing bowl. Add the frosting and mix until well combined. The cake should form a ball when you bunch it up in your hands and roll it.