Little rose & almond cupcakes

Method

• step 1

  Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake or muffin cases. Mix the flour, almonds, baking powder and sugar together in a large bowl. Beat the almond extract and eggs into the yogurt, then tip this into the dry ingredients with the butter. Whisk together until lump-free, then divide between the cases. Bake for 18-22 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. The cakes will freeze for up to 1 month.

• step 2

  Roll out the marzipan on a surface dusted with a little icing sugar, to about the thickness of a £1 coin. Using a 6cm round biscuit cutter, stamp out 12 circles, re-rolling and stamping trimmings if necessary. Mix enough icing sugar into a cup of water to give a syrupy icing, then brush over backs of the marzipan circles and stick onto cakes.

• step 3

  Knead a little yellow food colouring into one-quarter of the ready-roll icing, a little pink into another quarter and green into another quarter. Wrap up the green icing and set aside, then repeat step 2 using a 7cm cutter to stamp out 4 circles each from the pink, yellow and white icing, sticking again with syrup.

• step 4

  Mix enough water into the 100g icing sugar to give a stiff-ish icing. Divide into three, leave one white, and colour the others pink and yellow – make these colours a little darker so the roses stand out. Transfer icing into small food bags, twist tops to seal and snip off just the tiniest tip of one corner on each bag. Pipe spirals on cakes, mixing up the colours. Pinch small bits of the green icing into leaves, marking the vein with a toothpick if you like. Add 1, 2 or 3 leaves to each spiral so it looks like a rose (you can use the syrupy icing to help them stick if you need). The cakes are best eaten within 2 days, and once decorated will keep for 1-2 days in airtight containers.