Ice Cream Cone Cakes

The original recipe for these came from Good Food magazine, but I've made a few changes, most notably to the icing, which I think looks much more like a Mr Whippy ice cream than the ones in the mag.  I've also used a cupcake corer and filled the cakes with jam.  The custard powder in the cake mix gives a real vanilla ice cream flavour, and my icing has a lovely, soft whip texture.  Amazingly, the cones don't brown in the oven or go soft, as long as you bake them as soon as they're filled with the cake mix.
These are great fun to make and will delight young and old alike, my sister ate one of these with a huge grin on her face!

Makes 10

Equipment -
10 hole muffin tin
Electric whisk
Sugar thermometer for the icing

Ingredients -

Cakes -
10 flat bottomed ice cream cones, I used Askeys
200g butter, softened
200g plain flour
4 tbsp custard powder
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
200g golden caster sugar
2 large, free range eggs, beaten

Icing -
170g caster sugar
8 tbsp water
4 free range egg yolks
300g butter, soft but not runny
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
Food colouring if you want

Method -
Cakes -
1. Preheat oven to180C / 160C fan / gas 4
2. Sit cones in muffin tin.
3. Put butter, flour, custard powder, vanilla, sugar and eggs in a large bowl and beat with electric whisk.
4. Fill the cones 3/4 full with the cake mix.
5. Bake for about 30 mins, until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
6. Leave to cool.
7.If the cake mix has risen above the cone, trim it back with a sharp knife once cold.
8. Use a cupcake corer to remove some sponge and fill the hole with jam, I used home made blueberry and elderflower jam.  Cut a thin disc off the removed core and use this a plug for the jammy centre.

Icing -
1. Put the sugar and water in a small heavy-based saucepan and heat gently, without boiling, until the sugar dissolves.
2. Bring to the boil and boil until the temp reaches 110C / 225F on a sugar thermometer, this will take about 5 mins.  Don't let the syrup start to caramelise.
3. Meanwhile, put egg yolks in a bowl and whisk briefly with an electric whisk, then, pour the sugar syrup into the bowl in a thin, slow, steady stream, whisking continuously.
4. Keep whisking until the mixture becomes very thick, mousse-like, pale in colour and completely cold.
5. Gradually whisk in the butter, followed by the vanilla bean paste and food colouring if any.

To decorate -
Using a star nozzle, pipe swirls of icing on top of the cones to look like ice cream, be generous, the recipe gives you plenty icing.  Top with half a flake and hundreds and thousands, or whatever decoration takes your fancy.