Bonfire beauties

We had a really lovely bonfire party at friends' yesterday, lots of sharing dishes and cakes. Here's one recipe from me, and one from someone else that I tried on the night and loved.

Bonfire cupcakes (makes 24)

I made a standard 4-egg chocolate sponge mix (sub out 30g flour for cocoa powder). For me, this made 24 cupcakes with about 40g raw mix. I made them in muffin cases so there was a bit of freeboard, and they baked in about 20 minutes at 160°C (fan).

Once cooled:

Paint the top with marmalade and roll in, or sprinkle on, any chocolate/dark sprinkles, especially around the edge.

Pipe in a 'fire' of buttercream. I made one with 250g butter, 350g icing sugar, and milk to loosen (turned out there was about 20-25% too much for what I needed, but I don't like over-frosted cakes). I coloured it red, orange and yellow in three batches with gel colour, and placed it in the piping bag by alternating spoonfuls.

Add chocolate sticks for "wood" - I used posh Elizabeth Shaw things due to a lack of choice but Matchmakers would be ideal. There are 24 in a box and I had 2 boxes, so each cake got 6 bits. However, the sticks needed to be shorter than I first thought to look good (too-tall pyramid fires look silly) so I have a pot of snapped off ends to eat...

For a final touch I added two mini marshmallows on a cocktail stick to each :)

The other recipe I want to record before I lose it...

Delicious, rich-tasting, barbecue-y vegan baked beans from A Virtual Vegan. (Advice is to omit the vinegar.)