It seems that I am easily suggestible. We were invited to a barbecue last night and offered to bring dessert. Steven baked an amazing lemon tart but I wanted to take an alternative option as well. Having just finished reading Janet Evanovitch’s Wicked Appetite, which has a main character who is a baker who may have supernatural powers that enable her to bake perfect cupcakes every time, there was only one possible choice: cupcakes! (It is a very silly book but a good, fun read, particularly if you like Janet Evanovitch’s other series.)
Turns out that I don’t have supernatural powers that allow me to bake perfect cupcakes every time but these turned out pretty well regardless. I used the Raspberry cupcake recipe from Cupcakes from The Primrose Bakery, which includes raspberry jam swirled through the batter before baking. The recipe has you add extra jam after baking and before icing by cutting a small hole in the top of the cupcakes and spooning it in but I skipped this due to limited time before we had to leave.
The recipe book recommends a white chocolate buttercream icing but, since I wanted as little dairy in these as possible as an alternative to the vast amounts of cream in Steven’s tart, I used the basic vanilla buttercream icing instead.
Topped with a couple of fresh raspberries, these look amazing and taste great as well.
The best bit — we kept some of the cakes that weren’t quite as attractive as the ones in the photographs so we can have cupcakes again today!
