Passionfruit Cupcakes with Marshmallow Toppers

I'm a bad friend. At the very least, I've been a bad friend recently. When your life is a mess you tend to be incapable of doing the most obvious of tasks, like keeping in touch with your friends and getting your hair cut (it's getting ridiculously long now). So when my best friend Asian Gaga had a housewarming party and I knew that I was going to be a bad friend and wouldn't be able to go, I became determined this weekend to bake something for her party. It was the least I could do.

Of course, sometimes when you try to channel your frustration into your baking it can be a bit of a disaster. I had this vision of the cutest cupcakes topped with these neat, elegant, fluffy white house-shaped marshmallow with chocolate-dipped roofs. It sorta went to plan at first; I made Passionfruit Cupcakes topped with the best Fruit Tingles (Fizzy Candy) Icing. Then I made a batch of Homemade Passionfruit Marshmallows. But when it came to making them house-shaped, it was nearly impossible without a proper cookie cutter to do the job. I tried to cut it free-hand, and also around a stencil which I cut out of plastic, but it was just way too messy. After cutting through about 1/3 of the marshmallow I had about 2 decent houses. So I cut my losses and switched to the good old-faithful heart-shaped cutter. You can never go wrong with hearts!

They look pretty cute in the photos but about 10 minutes after I took these shots the marshmallows started sliding slow down the lollipop sticks. Learn from my lessons people; I cut and dusted the marshmallows and stuck them straight on to the lollipop sticks upright. You really can't do that with homemade marshmallows, they need plenty of time to dry out once they've been cut. I ended up having to cut my lollipop sticks in half so the hearts were sitting right above the icing. A rather bumpy car trip left the cupcakes barely recognisable by the time they reached their destination :( I hate transporting fiddly baked goods!

But the good news is, I think they tasted pretty good. I mean, you can't go wrong with the Fruit Tingles Icing. It's sweet, with a hint of salt from some good quality butter and then every now and then you come across a nubbin of sour, fizzy candy. I mixed fresh passionfruit pulp into my foolproof cupcake recipe, and into my usual marshmallow recipe. Even though I'm not a fan of passionfruit it really works great in marshmallows. And I can't repeat this enough; MAKE HOMEMADE MARSHMALLOWS. They are so much better than store-bought.

With any cupcake recipe, I always make too much icing. There's nothing worse than running out of icing when you are decorating cupcakes! It seemed like a gigantic waste to throw out any of the leftover icing, so I whipped up a batch of macarons (using my usual macaron shell recipe, topped with crushed up Fruit Tingles for those wondering) and filled them with the leftover icing. Ta-daaa!!! Fruit Tingle Macarons! How cute are they?? So I managed to make lots of great separate bits and bobs this weekend, but my execution of putting them all together was a bit shit. Hopefully the cupcakes went down well even though they were all smashed up.

Passionfruit Cupcakes, Fizzy Candy Icing and Passionfruit Marshmallows

(makes about 12 cupcakes, and about 30-40 marshmallows)

For the cupcakes:

125g (about 1 stick + 1 tbsp) butter

3/4 cup sugar (I used caster/superfine but regular/granulated works fine)

2 eggs, room temperature

1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Pulp of 3-4 fresh passionfruit (optional: strain to remove seeds)

225g (about 1 & 3/4 cups) self-raising flour

For the icing:

250g (about 2 & 1/4 sticks) salted butter (or use unsalted and add 1/4 tsp salt), softened

375g (about 3 cups) icing sugar, sifted

3 sticks (105g) Fruit Tingles (for non-Australians, replace with any other fizzy tablet candies like Bottle Caps or Smarties (not the chocolate covered candy with the same name), SweeTarts or Barratt's Refreshers) 

Prepare the cupcakes; line a 12-hole cupcake tray with papers and preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) (if fan-forced use 170°C (340°F)). Place butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat on high with an electric mixer for 3-5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Continue to beat on medium speed and add one egg at a time, mixing until combined. Add vanilla extract, passionfruit pulp and self-raising flour and mix on low until just combined. Spoon equal amounts into the cupcake papers, filling them about 3/4 full (I use an ice cream scoop to make this easier). Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown on top and a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean. Cool in tin for 5 minutes then cool completely on a wire rack.

When cakes are cool, prepare the icing. Crush Fruit Tingles into very fine pieces (you don't want anyone to break a tooth!), I did this by placing it into the food processor and pulsing it fine. You may end up with some very fine powder as well as small pieces, but that's fine. Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat on high with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Gradually add icing sugar, and beat again until combined and fluffy. Gradually mix crushed candies into the mixture, adjusting to taste. Place mixture in a piping bag and pipe over cupcakes.

For the Passionfruit Marshmallows:

500g (about 2 cups) sugar
1 tbsp liquid glucose (or light corn syrup)
Pulp of 3-4 fresh passionfruit, strained to remove seeds

2 tbsp gelatine powder
2 large egg whites
Vegetable oil (or melted butter) for greasing
1 cup (75g) icing sugar, sifted
1 cup (75g) cornflour (cornstarch)

Grease and line the base and sides with baking paper of a 24x32cm rectangular cake tray, or two 20cm square cake tins. Place caster sugar, glucose and 200ml water in a small saucepan. Place on low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Top up passionfruit pulp with cold water to make a total of 200ml liquid and place in a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatine powder over it and set aside to soften. Increase heat on saucepan to medium-high and insert a sugar thermometer. Boil for 5-10 minutes, until sugar thermometer reaches 120°C (250°F) (I got my candy thermometer from a $2 dollar shop for those wondering). Remove from the heat and carefully add gelatine to mixture and whisk until gelatine dissolves and no lumps remain (if you are worried about this step you can heat the bowl of gelatine over a pot of simmering water first to make it smoother before adding it).

Place egg whites in a large mixing bowl and start beating with an electric mixer with a whisk attachment on high speed until it reaches soft peaks (if you are using a hand mixer you should beat your egg whites to a stiff peak before you start adding the syrup). Gradually add hot sugar syrup to the egg white while mixing. Beat until mixture is glossy and white, about 5 minutes on a stand mixer and closer to 10 with a hand mixer. Before mixture starts to cool too much, pour mixture into prepared tin and use a spatula to quickly smooth top. Leave to set at room temperature overnight. Use a greased knife to cut into squares or your favourite cookie cutter to cut out shapes.  Mix icing sugar and cornstarch together and use to dust each marshmallow (dip your cookie cutter into the icing sugar mixture to make it easier to cut out shapes). Place on a piece of baking paper to dry at least 2 hours, then store in an airtight container in a cool place. If placing on sticks, insert lollipop sticks into marshmallows and leave to dry overnight. Best eaten within two days.