Thursday, October 8, 2009

Sushi Cupcakes

Now before you wrinkle your nose in disgust, these sushi cupcakes are not savoury and are not made with fish. I was in a silly mood one night; I had just bought myself a mini muffin tin and a bag of fish-shaped gummies inspired this idea. Cupcakes that look like little sushi rolls, but are crunchy and sweet. It appealed to my inner child. I remember as a child, playing with my Mum's homemade bright blue playdoh and moulding it into little pieces of sushi (not that I had any idea what sushi tasted like, living in the Middle East at the time). I blame it on the one video tape of Simpsons episodes we had brought with us to Qatar, which I watched over and over as there was hardly anything on the free-to-air tv at the time. Remember the episode where the Simpsons go to a sushi restaurant and Homer eats fugu and then thinks he's going to die? Yeah.

So the thing I love about these is they are so simple to decorate and yummy. I have a feeling it would either be a big hit with the kids, or completely confuse the heck out of them. I definitely managed to confuzzle my workmates, offering them a whole platter of these and asking if they wanted some sushi. They sniffed at it, eyed it warily and asked "What...is it?" Heehee! It's just a regular vanilla cupcake topped with melted white chocolate mixed with rice bubble cereal and chopped up gummy lollies. Once they worked up the courage to taste them, they were a huge hit since they were moreish little bite-sized treats. One of my workmates even mentioned wanting to make them for her daughter's birthday party :)

Sushi Cupcakes
You will need:
1 quantity foolproof vanilla cupcake batter for full size cupcakes (or 1/2 quantity if only making mini muffin sized ones)
Green cupcake paper liners (or green fruit roll-ups to wrap around the cake if you can find it)
Rice bubbles
400g white chocolate
1 pack of various coloured gummy lollies

Bake cupcakes as per the foolproof cupcake recipe. With mini muffins, make sure to only half-fill the cupcake papers with batter, to make sure they do not rise too high and are easier to decorate. Allow to cool completely. In the meantime, cut equal sized cubes of gummy lollies with a sharp knife. (For the mini-muffins, I cut 0.5cm cubes of red, green and yellow gummies)

Can you tell I was in a silly mood that night?

Melt the white chocolate in small batches of about 100g at a time, to avoid it cooling and setting before you are finished spreading it over the tops of the cakes. Do this using a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water or in heated in a microwave for 30 seconds at a time until it is melted and smooth. Add rice bubbles to the melted chocolate and gently stir it in until it coats all the rice bubbles with a thin, even layer of chocolate. I think added about 1/2 cup of rice bubbles to each 100g of chocolate, but I would suggest to keep adding rice bubbles until it looks like the right texture you are looking for (enough rice bubbles so you can clearly see the texture of the 'rice' but enough chocolate to coat the cereal and hold the mixture together). Spoon the mixture over the top of your cupcakes.

Use a skewer or tip of a knife to dig a small hole in the middle of the 'rice'. Gently press your chopped up gummy lollies into the small hole to create the filling for your sushi. Leave these to set for a few hours. I made these in using full-size cupcakes and mini-muffins, and I definitely preferred the cute smaller version. I couldn't resist plating them up that night with some chopsticks and a bowl of vanilla 'soy sauce' haha! I probably could have done a lot more to make these look even more sushi-like, but it was late and I wanted to go to bed :P

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24 comments:

  1. Oh, that's very clever. Love it! :)

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  2. Clever and cute and delicious too, probably! Yet another thing this evening to make me want to jump on a flight to Japan right now.

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  3. Ahhh nice one!!
    roll with chocolate gummy sheet please for nori!

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  4. Hehe you are so clever Steph! They are so cute :D We should hold a mind blowing sweet as savoury cupcake party together ;)

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  5. That's so gorgeous! I love your cupcake ideas Steph - they make me giggle :)

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  6. Very cool! I'd order a gummy shark nigiri every time. You could get a box of green rollups and make some handroll gummy sushi - the thought of that is making my teeth fall out :P

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  7. Wow, what a fabulous idea! They look so cool - I would have been confused too if I saw them! I love the idea of rice bubbles to make it look like sushi rice!

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  8. Kawaii! These are very cute. Now if one of these had a wasabi bomb inside... lol

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  9. How cute are these cupcakes. I bet they are super tasty..

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  10. What a clever idea this is, and so brilliantly executed! Good one, Steph.

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  11. You are the undisputed queen of cupcakes.

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  12. They look so cute! I love the idea of the rice being made out of crunchy rice bubbles covered in white chocolate - delicious!

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  13. What a great idea. These are so creative!

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  14. Haha! The Japanese would go crazy over these cupcakes. I think you are on to something big here!

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  15. These are so adorable! What a great idea!!

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  16. Waaahh kawaii! That's such a cute idea! I was envisaging Adriano Zumbo style nori wrapped cupcakes, but these look much more tempting!

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  17. Oohh so cute! I chuckled a little when I saw the cupcakes in the shape of a face! ha ha. These look so adorable! Great work Steph :)

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  18. Y - heehee thanks! it was one of my silly kiddy ideas

    mademoiselle délicieuse - I know! I was sad I had to cut it up cos it was too big!

    Conor - Oh i know! I'd jump on the plane with you too haha!

    Yas - Haha yes I gotta do that next time!

    Lorraine - YES let's do it! Hahahaha that would be freakin awesome.

    shez - :D thank you! hehe anything giggle worthy is good!

    Mr Taste - Hehe that's exactly what I had been hoping to do but they didn't sell any plain green roll ups at coles :( only rainbow and I decided that was a little too psychedelic :)

    Rilsta - Thanks! Hehe I know, I got some weird looks! It worked even better than I thought it would as rice!

    grabyourfork - hahaha now there's an idea! Totally doing that next time :D

    A cupcake or two - Aw thank you! They were very moreish, I don't usually eat many of my cupcakes but I kept sneaking back for more!

    Belle - :D Thank you so much!!

    lex - Heehee I quite like that title :)

    Food.Baby - Thank you!

    Reemski - Thanks hun! :D

    Jacq - Hehe I was tossing up between white chocolate and melted marshmallow and decided for the lazier option :) Glad it worked out!

    Julia - Thanks so much!

    Trissa - Hahaha really? I am thinking of redoing them with a little more effort in the future :)

    Brenda - Thank you!! :)

    Chris - Heehee!! LOL Zumbo and his nori carrot cake did cross my mind but I don't think I'm brave enough to experiment like that just yet!

    Betty - :D Hehe yay I'm glad it wasn't just me that got a kick out of that! Thanks Betty!

    Betty - :) Thanks Bets! xx

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  19. omg these are soooooo cute!!! genius at work again ;)

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