After the manflu stroke back and got me out of order for more than a week, I am back on deck and can share some more basic cupcake magic with you. Everyone has a few go-to recipes, some basic stuff that can be used for all sorts of magics with only a few alterations. It’s all about flavours and presentation, mix and match your favourite cupcakes, spice them up with some fruit or flavour and top off with a frosting of your choice. If you’re feeling fancy, you can go all wild with decorations and if you’re not, just spread the frosting with a knife. Whatever you do, you are the boss and you can do anything you like! For 12 Cupcakes:
- 110 g butter at room temperature
- 225 g brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 275 g flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 125 ml milk at room temperature
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- Alterations: e.g. a handfull of raspberries or chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 160°C with fan and line a muffin tin with paper liners. Cream the butter and add the sugar, keep beating until much paler in colour. Then add the eggs, one after the other and whisk u ntil light and fluffy. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in one bowl and the combine the milk and vanilla extract in a jug or bowl. Sift in a third of the flour-mix, followed by half the milk. Mix to combine before you add another third of the flour and the other half of milk. End with the last third of the flour, only mix until combined. Transfer into your paper liners with a spoon or like I do with an oldfashioned icecream scoop. If you like top with some raspberries and slightly press them in so they don’t burn in the oven. Place the tin in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in the tin for maximum 5 minutes before you turn them out on a wire rack to cool.
For the decoration I made a batch of chocolate buttercream and dirty iced the tops of the cupcakes for an even base. Fill the rest of the buttercream into a piping bag with a small basketweave tip, a tip with a wide opening, flat on one side and zigzag on the other. Draw some vertical lines, half a centimeter apart each (of course with the even side of the tip facing down). Then pipe a stripe to go over one of the vertical stripes and do the same with the third over the third vertical stripe and so on. Form the next row, starting to cover the second stripe and the fourth one. Make the next row like the first, again piping over the first and third stripe and so on until you have covered the whole cupcake. E voilá, it looks like a beautiful weaved basket! I added a raspberry or two on top for more flavour and a pop of colour.
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