Chocolate, rum and ginger cupcakes

We've just come back from spending a brilliant weekend on a canal barge in Bradford on Avon for my friend Cath's hen party.  As it was pirate themed and I made these rum cupcakes with chocolate and ginger, and made skull-and-cross-bones flags on cocktail sticks to decorate them.  These went very well with copious rum and ginger cocktails!

Ingredients

8 oz butter

8 oz caster sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

8 oz self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp ground ginger

4 tbsp white rum

For the glaze

5 fl oz white rum

2 oz demerara sugar

For the icing

9 oz icing sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp ground ginger

3 oz butter, softened

1 tsp boiling water

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.  Fill cupcake tins with 24 paper cases.
2. Start by making the glaze: place the rum and demerara sugar in a small saucepan and bring to the boil, allowing it to reduce by about half, then set aside to cool.
3. To make the cake batter, in a large mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
4. In a separate bowl or jug, beat the eggs and vanilla essence.
5. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture a little at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Sift in the flour, baking powder, cocoa and ginger and beat until well combined.
7. Stir in the rum.
8. Divide the mixture between the paper cases and bake for about 15 mins until springy when gently touched.
9. Place on a wire cooling rack, and use a skewer to poke holes all over the top of each cake.
10. Use a pastry brush to coat the top of each cake with the rum glaze, making sure you reserve a few tablespoons for the icing.
11. While the cakes are cooling, sift the icing sugar, cocoa and ginger into a large mixing bowl, add the butter and a teaspoon of boiling water and beat together with a wooden spoon.
12. Add the reserved rum glaze to the icing and beat until soft and fluffy.
13. Once the cakes have cooled completely, decorate each with the icing.