Bloodshot Eye Balls

Ingredients

• 1 x 490g Madeira cake, crusts cut off
• 6 tbsp Lyle’s Strawberry Squeezy Syrup
• 600g white ready-to-roll icing
• A little icing sugar
• Green, blue and red food colouring
• Lyle’s Strawberry Squeezy Syrup, for drizzling

Method

1. Break the Madeira cake into chunks and put them into a food processor to process into crumbs. Add 6 tablespoons of Lyle’s Strawberry Squeezy Syrup and process for a few more seconds.
2. Tip the mixture into a bowl and work it with your hands until it sticks together. Form into 32 neat balls, rolling them in the palms of your hands. Set aside.
3. Roll out 500g of the ready-to-roll icing very thinly on a surface dusted with icing sugar. Use an 8.5cm plain cutter to cut out circles, re-rolling the icing as needed. Cover the cake balls with the icing, snipping off the excess to form neat balls.
4. Colour half the remaining icing blue with 2-3 drops of blue food colouring, and the rest with 2-3 drops of green food colouring. Roll out thinly and cut out 32 small circles to form the irises. Mix the blue and green trimmings together with 1-2 drops of red food colouring. Roll out thinly and cut out tiny circles for the pupils of the eyes. Position the irises and pupils on the white cake balls, fixing them in place by brushing them with a little water.
5. Paint undiluted red food colouring onto the ‘eyeballs’ with a fine brush to represent the ‘veins’.
6. Put the finished eyeballs into mini muffin cases, pinching the opposite sides of the paper cases, so that they look like the eye sockets. Just before serving, drizzle a little Lyle’s Strawberry Squeezy Syrup into the corners of the eyes.
7. Cook’s tip: Keep in an airtight container in a cool place for up to 3 weeks.