Are you doing any baking this bank holiday? To brighten up an otherwise damp weekend we're going to be making these delicious and bright spring cupcakes - perfect for a refined afternoon tea party, or accompanied by a cuppa in your favourite mug!
Raspberry swirl cupcakes:
· 125g unsalted butter, softened
· 1 vanilla pod, cut in half and seeds scraped out
· 125g self-raising flour
· 50g '00' grade plain flour, sieved
125g unsalted butter, softened
125 g (41/2 oz) ready-to-roll white fondant icing
Preheat the oven to 190oC/375oF/Gas Mark 5.
Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper muffin cases.
Whisk the butter, sugar and vanilla seeds together using an electric hand whisk or beat with a wooden spoon until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, flours and buttermilk and whisk until combined and fluffy.
Meanwhile, mash 100g of fresh raspberries in a bowl until you have a rough puree.
Fold through the puree into the fluffy mixture until it's just mixed and slightly marbled.
Divide the mixture equally between the paper cases, filling them about two-thirds full, and bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes until golden and risen.
Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to go cold.
For the lemon buttercream:
Whisk the butter in a bowl until fluffy.
Gradually add the icing sugar and whisk until it comes together
Add the lemon juice and whisk until light and fluffy.
Reserve 2 tablespoons of the buttercream.
Colour the remaining buttercream with a few drops of blue food colouring, beating with a spatula until light blue.
Spread the blue buttercream over the tops of the cupcakes using a small palette knife.
Lightly dust a clean work surface with icing sugar and roll the fondant icing out until about 3−4 mm (1/8−1/4 inch) thick.
Using a selection of large, medium and small flower cutters, stamp out lots of flowers until the icing has been used up.
Arrange a few different sized flowers on top of each cupcake, spacing them so they look like spring blossom.
Put the reserved buttercream into a piping bag with a plain writing nozzle and pipe flower stems joining some of the flowers together and coming from the side of each cake.
Prick a hole in the centre of any large flowers using a skewer.
Arrange a silver ball in the centre of each flower.
Recipe from www.goodtoknow.co.uk