Soc-a-roos Soc-Soc-a-roos

Sono italo-australiana.

Australia has not been in the World Cup (in my life time), and so, I've always cheered on the Azzurris.

This year, and whaddaya know-
Australia qualifies, makes it out of the first pool, and meets Italy at the quarter-final entry game.

And so, I baked cupcakes.

Blue for the Azzurris, and green & gold for the Socceroos.

My cupcake prediction was right on the money.

I made an even amount of batter, yet the Azzurri batter, yielded just one more cupcake than the Socceroos.

1:0

The Azzurri cupcakes used a sicilian cake recipe I found, and altered.

They were orange & almond cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting.

I basically followed VWaV's "Lemon Gems" cake recipe-

Substituting orange juice & rind, for lemon.

I also substituted some of the plain flour, with almond meal, and added some almond essence.

The canola oil was halved and compensated for, by the addition of apple sauce, and the sugar was substituted with apple juice concentrate & maple syrup.

I also added one egg into the mix (while VWaV recipes never use eggs).

The Australian Socceroos cupcakes were virtually the same, except they adhered to the lemony rules of the "Lemon Gems", and were finished with lemon buttercream frosting.

Their lemony-ness AND Australian-ness was heightened by the addition, of the Australian native herb- Lemon myrtle.

Last night, at 1am, while watching the game live, I appropriately ate 1/2 an Azzuri, and 1/2 a Socceroo.

They were deliciously light and fluffy, and infact the perfect midnight snack, as they weren't too flavourful, heavy or sweet- just right!

As fate would have it, it was my closet-crush of days gone by, scored the winning goal- Mr Francesco Totti..

A win for me either way, but still, I can't help wishing the Socceroos had won..