I got a little carried away on a recent trip to Lakeland and bought some flavour extracts (namely chocolate, lavender and anise). When I had explained to my husband what anise tastes like, he suggested that we try to bake something which tastes like a ambuca-based drink. Lo and behold, the Slippery Nipple cupcake was born. These cupcakes are based on the BBC's vanilla cupcakes recipe, but with an aniseedy twist.
Ingredients (makes 8 large or 12 small):
80ml grenadine
40ml water
1 sheet gelatine
85g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
170g icing sugar
2 tbsp Baileys
Grenadine jelly
1. Soak the gelatine sheet in water for around 5 minutes. Mix together the grenadine and water and gently heat in a pan. Squeeze the gelatine gently to remove any excess water, then add to the grenadine and water mixture and gently heat until the gelatine has dissolved then simmer for 2 minutes, stirring every so often. Pour into a container and leave to cool slightly before transferring into the fridge until set and jelly-like.
Cupcakes
2. Follow the BBC recipe (linked above) or any recipe of your choice, replacing any vanilla extract called for with anise extract.
Baileys buttercream
3. Beat the butter until fluffy then whisk in half the icing sugar until combined. Beat in the Baileys and the rest of the icing sugar.
Construction
4. First, fill the inside of each cake with some of the grenadine jelly; this is the "nipple". To do this, first cut a circle around the top of the cake, angled at about 45 degrees into a "cone" shape, keeping the "cap" you cut off to one side. Make the hole within the cake a little broader by cutting around it a little more, the cut or spoon some of the jelly into the hole. Replace the "cap" so that the cake looks as it did before -- the perfect crime!
Final touches
5. Pipe the buttercream onto the cupcake in a swirling motion. Voila!
