Movie Bites does X-Men: Days of Future Past

THE MOVIE
Jackman, Fassbender and McAvoy unite for the first time with the release of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the seventh X-Men film in the series (if you include spin-offs and prequels). Bryan Singer directs, returning to the franchise after the well-received X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). The whole X-Men (and X-Women) crew (past and present) are joined to fight a war for the survival of their species.

THE SCENE
Wolverine is cranky. He's on a sugar low after all the time-travelling he's been doing and Magneto hasn't been taking the threat to mutant survival seriously enough. Things get heated and old arguments emerge. But then, just at the right moment, Professor X appears with a plate of lemony cupcakes, placating the beast within Logan with their zingy flavour and fluffy texture. Logan turns to Magneto and says "I'm sorry for what I said when I was hungry."*

*may not be in the movie

THE FOOD
I mean, seriously, imagine Wolverine eating a cupcake? Too cute.

INGREDIENTS
For the cupcakes
125g soft butter, cut into cubes
125g caster sugar
2 large eggs
125g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
2 tablespoons of milk
 Finely grated zest of one lemon

For the icing
125g soft unsalted butter, cut into cubes
 250g icing sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Yellow and blue food colouring

METHOD
Line a cupcake tin with 12 cupcake cases. Pre-heat the oven to 180c/160c fan-assisted/ Gas Mark 4.

In a large bowl, beat the butter with an electric whisk until fluffy. Add the caster sugar and beat together until well combined and really fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, beating until well combined. Don’t worry if the mixture separates at this point, that happens sometimes. It will all come together when you add the flour.

Sieve the flour and baking powder into the mix. Add the milk and grated lemon zest before using a spoon or spatula to gently fold all of the ingredients together until well blended. Don’t be too heavy-handed with the mixing as that will result in a dense cupcake.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and bake for 18 to 22 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of one of your cupcakes comes out clean. Once cooked, remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before icing.

Meanwhile, make your icing by beating the sugar and icing sugar together in a large bowl with an electric whisk until really light and fluffy. Mix in the lemon juice before seperating one-third of the icing and placing in a second bowl. Add blue food colouring to the smaller amount of icing and yellow food colouring to the larger amount, mixing until the colours are bright and vibrant.

Ice your cupcakes with the yellow icing before using a piping bag (you can use a sandwich bag with a small hole cut in it if you don’t have a fancy icing bag) to draw the X-Men symbol on the top of your cupcake.