Christmas Pudding Cake Pops

Preheat oven to 180 degrees / 160 degrees fan

Line a bun tin with 12 paper cases.

Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time then mix in the vanilla extract, flour and milk.

Divide the mixture equally between the 12 cases and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and when cool enough to handle take off outer case and put into a large bowl. Crumble them all together to make very fine breadcrumbs.

Meanwhile make the frosting by beating the ingredients together.

Add a spoonful of the frosting at a time to the crumbs and work in. You will probably not use all of the frosting. You only need enough to bind all the crumbs together. You should be able to form a ball of crumbs without it falling apart. Once you have one big ball of dough wrap it in cling film and place in the fridge for at least an hour.

After an hour remove from the fridge. Pull pieces the size of walnuts off the dough and roll into balls. Place on a tray lined with parchment paper and put back in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile melt some chocolate.

Remove the cake balls from the fridge. Dip a cake pop stick in some melted chocolate and then push half way into a cake ball. Repeat for all of them. Then start back at the first one and dip it into the melted chocolate. It's easier to scoop out a large spoon of melted chocolate and to roll the ball in it until it is evenly coated.

Push into some polystyrene or a cake pop stand and leave to set.

Once set make some royal icing by adding a few drops of cold water to the sugar and mixing well. Put a small dollop on top of each pudding and allow it to drip down the sides.

Tear off two small pieces of Siucra Roll out icing and colour one piece green for the holly leaves and the other red for the holly berries. To colour the icing put a small amount of colour onto the white icing and knead it in until it is well combined and there are no streaks left. (You may want to wear gloves when doing this.) Add more colour if necessary.

Dust your work surface with Siucra icing sugar.

Roll out the icing on the dusted work surface. Cut out holly leaf shapes and roll out some red berries and place on top of the royal icing. Allow to set before serving.

Designed by Chef Ciara Fennessy