Popping candy cupcakes

There’s a great sweet shop in Covent Garden which sells all kids of American sweets. On my last visit I bought some packs of popping candy thinking they would be great as a cupcake topping!

I made some simple cupcakes using the vanilla recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. I then made a buttercream to which I added a few drops of vanilla essence. I put a dollop of the buttercream on each cupcake and sprinkled popping candy on top. They whizzed and fizzed and looked quite pretty sparkling in the sun (obviously I made these last week before the current torrential rain).

The popping candy I used was cola flavoured but the flavour wasn’t too strong. You need to eat the cupcakes pretty quickly if you want to get the full effect of the popping candy, otherwise  it loses it’s fizz and is just a pretty decoration.