Percy Pig Cupcakes

I am currently addicted to the little porcine devil known as Percy Pig. For those of you not familiar with this character, he is a chewy sweet available from Marks & Spencer. He comes in many different varieties, and I decided that the original Percy would look very cute on top of a cupcake.

Percy comes in grape and raspberry flavours, and after being unable to find any cupcake recipes in these flavours which I felt would compliment him, I settled on a vanilla cupcake. I've made a few of the Hummingbird Bakery recipes, and have always found them to produce a delicious sponge, moist and light. The recipe I used can be found here.

The only change I made to the recipe was using skimmed milk instead of whole milk, and it produced the perfect amount of mixture for 12 standard sized cupcakes. I baked them for 18 minutes at 150 degrees in my fan oven, and they came out perfectly. I have never made buttercream frosting with milk in the recipe before, and was a little concerned that it may be a bit runny, but it actually came out beautifully. It tasted lovely and creamy on top of the cupcake, and the actual cake itself wasn't overpoweringly sweet. Again, the quantity was just about perfect for the number of cakes, and there was very little waste. I didn't pile it on as I wanted to keep the tops of the cakes relatively flat, but if you like lots of buttercream, you may need to make a little more.

I found that a 100g pack of Percy Pig sweets contains exactly 12. I bought two of these packs (they were on offer) just in case I needed any more, and may use the second bag to whip up another batch as these are a scrumptious alternative to chocolate cakes, and I think they look incredibly cute.