Ice cream flavours in cupcake form is the best description for these beauties.
The sponge cake tastes creamy, somehow (perhaps owing to the lower proportion of eggs compared with most recipes and the increased milk) and a ripple of raspberry is always going to place them squarely in the ice-cream-flavour playing field. Add in a raspberry sauce-esque core and creamy icing and your sundae is complete!
When the weather is too hot for real ice cream (as is has been the last week or so in Paris) and you have a birthday picnic to provide for, these cakes are perfect.
They were inspired by a recipe in the book ‘Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery’ but their method didn’t work for me and I tweaked the ingredients too. Ditto the icing.
If you can get your hands on some real raspberries, they make the perfect cherry on the cake (!) but it had to be hundreds and thousands for my daughter’s birthday party picnic.
This recipe makes 12 regular-sized cupcakes (not muffin-sized, which are bigger)
Ingredients
Raspberry ripple cupcakes
- 110g butter
- 180g caster sugar
- 2 eggs (medium or large)
- 245g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 125ml milk (whole or semi-skimmed)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 7 tbsp raspberry jam (ideally seedless) – 3 tbsp for ripple, 4 tbsp for raspberry jam core
White chocolate buttercream
- 120g butter
- 180g icing sugar
- 150g white chocolate
- fresh raspberries to decorate
Method
Switch your oven on to 180C
Line a cupcake tin with 12 cases.
Cream the butter and caster sugar together in a freestanding mixer until pale.
Measure out the flour and add baking powder, stirring through.
Lightly whisk the eggs.
Add one egg’s worth of whisked egg with a large heaped tablespoon of the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar and mix until just combined. Repeat with the rest of the egg and another large heaped tablespoon of the flour mix. Add the rest of the flour and mix on slow again, then pour in the milk and the vanilla essence with the machine running, stopping as soon as the batter is homogeneous.
In a separate small bowl, measure out 3 tablespoons of raspberry jam and stir to loosen it up. Fold this through the cake batter to create a ripple effect.
Use a spring-release ice cream scoop or dessert spoon to fill the cupcake cases 3/4 full.
Bake for approximately 25 minutes, until risen and golden.
Leave the cupcakes to cool completely.
When cold, use a sharp knife to cut out a well in the middle of each cupcake, nearly down to the bottom. Fill with a teaspoon of raspberry jam.
Melt the white chocolate and leave to cool a little.
Beat together the butter and icing sugar until pale and airy (about 5 minutes, scraping down the bowl and beater a couple of times). Add the molten white chocolate and beat until smooth.
Using a palette knife, top each jam-filled cake with a swirl of white chocolate buttercream and decorate with a fresh raspberry or whatever else you fancy!