Channel your inner Elf and get in the Christmas spirit with this fantastic recipe from our festive friends at Waitrose. It’s great fun to do with the kids and get them excited for Christmas. They’ll love decorating them as elves and they’ll have a tasty treat to eat after!
- Preparation time:1 hour
- Cooking time:25 mins plus cooling
- Total time: 1h 25 mins plus cooling
Makes: 12
Ingredients
225g unsalted butter, softened
150g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
175 g self-raising flour
100g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
50g milk chocolate, chopped
Smarties, to decorate
Red, green and black icing from 500g pack of ready-to-roll coloured icing
Small piece white ready-to-roll icing
Method
- Preheat oven to 180°C, gas mark 4. Line a 12-section muffin tray with muffin cases. Put 150g of the butter, the sugar, vanilla, eggs and flour in a bowl and beat until pale and creamy. Divide into the cake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and just firm to touch. Cool.
- Beat the remaining butter with icing sugar to make a buttercream. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a pan of hot water.
- Spread the buttercream over the cakes. For each hat, take a small piece of red icing and roll into a log with a point at one end. Flatten using icing sugar-dusted fingers, and position on each cake. Place a Smartie, slightly off centre, for noses. Use red icing to shape curved red mouths and press in position.
- Roll little balls of green icing and place at the ends of the hats, then roll out small triangles for the beards.
- Spoon the melted chocolate into one corner of a small, new plastic food bag and snip off the merest tip so the chocolate can be piped in a thin line. Use to pipe the hair. Roll ovals of white and black icing into eyes. Leave in a cool place to harden.
Give it a go now and get your ingredients from waitrose.com and earn a festive £4 donation on your first shop or a very merry £1.50 if you’ve shopped there before, but hurry you’ve only got till 17th November!
Plus, if you’re looking to buy your turkeys and trimmings early, at Waitrose Entertaining you’ll be able to raise a 5% donation for your cause too.