These cupcakes are actually much easier to make than they first appear – and super tasty to boot! You can make the roses out of any candy you’d prefer, but I find sour straps are generally the easiest and quickest to master – and they just so happen to be my favourite candy!

• ⅔ cup self-raising flour
• A pinch of salt
• ¼ cup milk
• A few drops of vanilla essence
• 5 Tb melted butter
• ⅓ cup white sugar
• 1 egg

• 2 lemons (separate into zest and juice)
• 100g caster sugar
• 50g unsalted butter (cubed)
• 2 eggs
• 1 packet white mini marshmallows (if you’re using this recipe to make normal-sized cupcakes, use regular marshmallows)

• Mini pearls
• 1 packet of Strawberry Sour Straps
• 9 green gummy Frogs
• 140g butter
• 280g icing sugar
• 1 Tb milk
• Yellow food colouring
• (If you’re using bought yellow buttercream frosting than you can disregard the last four ingredients)

1. Heat your oven to 175°C (approx 350°F) and line a mini cupcake tray with cases (you can also use this recipe to make normal-sized cupcakes without any ingredient adjustments)
2. In a small bowl, mix your salt and flour, then set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together your milk and vanilla essence, set this aside too.
3. In a large, microwave safe bowl, mix your melted butter, sugar and egg together until fully incorporated. In batches, add your dry ingredients and flour to this mix – alternating between wet and dry until everything has come together.
4. Scoop 1 tablespoon of mixture into each cake case, and then bake for 10 minutes or until cupcakes have risen and are slightly springy to the touch. Allow them to cool for twenty minutes before continuing with this recipe.

(for the lemon curd)

1. Put the lemon zest, juice, sugar and butter into a microwave safe bowl, and heat over a pot of simmering water until all the butter has melted.
2. Whisk together the eggs in a separate bowl, and then stir into the mixture. Leave this all to cook over the pot of water for 10 minutes – until the mixture has thickened and is creamy.
3. Set the mixture aside to cool, stirring constantly.

(assembly)

1. Remove the core of the cupcakes with the back of a piping nozzle, and spoon in the lemon curd mixture until almost full. Close the opening at the top with a marshmallow – and, using a cooking blow torch or a stove-top (it really works – but be careful!) lightly toast the top of the marshmallow.
2. Beat the frosting butter in a large bowl until it has softened. Add half of the icing sugar and beat again – until smooth. Then add the other half and just one tablespoon of milk and beat again until the mixture is smooth and creamy. If it’s still a bit too thick add in some more milk, bit by bit until you reach the right consistency. Stir in the yellow food coloring until you reach a soft, baby yellow.
3. Using a star-shaped nozzle, pipe a small swirl in the middle of the cupcake. Roll our your sour straps and using a small, sharp knife cut a series of outwards-facing rounded edges along the strap (don’t worry about making them even), Roll up the strap, pressing the ‘petals’ down as you do so until you have a completed rose – you may need to add on a second strap if you’re going for a bigger rose (to make any adjustments, just wet your fingers and press the candy together as desired for a few seconds).
4. Leave your roses to settle for about 30 seconds, and then press them gently onto the top of the yellow swirl you piped earlier, making sure that the rose is secure but not squishing the icing beneath it.
5. Lightly press a couple of the pearls around the remaining icing on every side. As a final step, cut a couple of leaf shapes out of the gummy frogs by slicing away the front of the frog and creating a thin oval shape from the body of the gummy. Stick these in pairs beside the roses, being sure that they are clearly visible.
6. Enjoy your enchanting Beauty and the Beast cupcakes!!!

Seriously, I can’t overstate how delicious these cupcakes are – and there are so many easy hacks to make these tasty treats even simpler and quicker! If you don’t have any ingredients or time to make your own lemon curd – you could always spoon a bit of lemon butter instead!

I’ll be posting a small series of themed mini-cupcakes here soon – so don’t forget to check back for those and let me know how it went if you try this yourself!!!

Enjoy!