Raspberry Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting

So my friend Lisa lent me her Primrose Bakery cupcake book and when flicking through this recipe caught my eye. I absolutely love the raspberry-white chocolate combo so this was obviously perfect for me! All aspects of the recipe are quite different to my own standard recipes for both cupcakes and icing so it was somewhat of an experiment to see how these methods changed the final result as well as the taste test!

The first thing that struck me about this recipe was that it used both self-raising and plain flour which I have never seen before in a cake recipe like this. It also involved a lot more steps than my all in one method so it was definitely a lot more time consuming! The original recipe says to cut a hole in the centre of the cupcake once its cool and fill it with jam but to add an extra element of experimentation I put a whole raspberry into the centre of half of them instead to see what that turned out like.

Turns out, I totally do not like this recipe! The cupcakes are much denser than I personally like and somehow seem to wet as the cases seem to peel themselves off after a day… The frosting however was delicious and I will be using that again! I also really like the idea of the mixture having jam in it to give it that extra raspberry flavour so I think I will try adding it to my own cupcake recipe next time and see how that goes.

While this was definitely not the best recipe I’ve ever followed (or maybe it was me who did it all wrong) I have at least learnt that when I want to experiment in future, just change one thing at a time instead of ending up with a disaster! You have to admit, they do look good though!

Chocolate and Raspberry Whoopie Pies

Yet another delight from over the pond! I was struggling for baking inspiration when I came across these and couldn’t resist. The recipe was features on a top ten whoopee pie recipe list and is from Gourmet.com. I’ve only eaten them once before and intrigued by the biscuit come cake sandwich parts. As for the filling, super sweet! But upon reading a variety of recipes I realised lots of different fillings are used so I picked one that contained marshmallow fluff as I’m still totally excited about it. While the recipe made a chocolate and vanilla version, I used raspberry marshmallow fluff instead to create these chocolate and raspberry pies.

The sandwich parts are often referred to as ‘cookies’ but to me they are much more cakey in taste and texture once baked. The mixture is however quite stiff once everything is mixed in together and the 25 year old handheld I was using was struggling somewhat towards the end! The recipe said to keep them 2inches apart and after my cookie fiasco I thought I’d better pay attention but mine didn’t seem to spread a whole lot. They also didn’t come out as smooth as I expected and all whoopee pies I’ve seen have been very flat and smooth. Next time I think I’ll make more of an effort to smooth them before they go in with the hope of achieving better presentation!

When I made the filling up, I was a little concerned there wouldn’t be enough to fill each of the sandwiches but it was very deceiving as after filling them twice over there was still enough for me to eat by the tablespoon! This mixture said it made 8 sandwiches in total so I followed it exactly this time to test it but I think in future I will make smaller balls and flatten them more myself with the hope of making more from the mixture!

While there are some presentation issues I will be troubleshooting in future, these taste amazing! The chocolate sandwich is not overly sweet so nicely balances the very sweet raspberry mallow filling. Definitely something I will make again and I’ll be adapting the recipe to try out different varieties too.

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

So for my first post I thought I’d start with one of my favourites, Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins. Muffins are great to bake. Recipes are often very simple and once you find a basic one you like, you can add anything to them from chocolate chips to blueberries, the possibilities are endless! 

I first came across this combination on a recipe card I had when I was younger and it was definitely a hit. When going to make them a few months ago the recipe card could not be found and so, after a few trail runs and an adaptation or two, the one I’ve used here is definitely my favourite. You also don’t need to worry with things like sieving the flour as the batter you’re aiming for is lumpy anyway. This recipe is just a case of mixing wet and dry together separately and then combining the two, simple as that.

When making muffins it can often be hard to get that really high ‘muffin top’ and my friend Rose recently mentioned the same problem to me when she tried some a few weeks ago. I think the secret is to use a deep muffin pan rather than one you would use to make fairy cakes. The deeper pan provides more support for the mixture when baking ensuring it goes up rather than out.

I personally think these taste best when they are warm, about 10-15mins after you take them out of the oven. Any earlier than that the chocolate and raspberries are still too liquidy to hold together well. That said, they are delicious when cool too so don’t feel like you have to eat them all at once!

Here is the recipe for the muffins I made:

2 eggs

125ml vegetable oil

250ml milk

1tsp vanilla extract

200g caster sugar

400g plain flour

3tsp baking power

1tsp very fine salt

100g white chocolate chips

150g raspberries

Preheat the oven at 200°C

Put the eggs, oil, milk, vanilla and sugar in a bowl and beat well

Mix the flour, baking power, salt and white chocolate chips in a separate bowl (I use the bowl for my scales to save on washing up!)

Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir well

Gently mix in the raspberries (Try to keep them whole but it’s inevitable that some will break up)

Divide into muffin cases and bake for 25 minutes

Then its time to Lick Your Spoon!