Description
Vanilla cupcakes with a strawberry centre, topped with a fortified whipped cream with diced strawberries and a slice of fresh strawberry!
Ingredients
Units
Scale
For the cakes
- 110 g caster sugar
- 110 g unsalted butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 110 g self raising flour
- 2 tablespoons milk ( I used semi-skimmed)
- Strawberry jam, for filling
For the whipped cream icing and decoration
- 375 ml double cream
- 45 g icing sugar, sifted
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 good sized strawberries, finely diced
- 3 good sized strawberries, sliced for decorating the tops of the finished cakes
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180° / fan 160° / 350°. Line a 12-hole cupcake/muffin tin with paper cupcake cases.
- Put the caster sugar and softened butter in a large mixing bowl and beat together with an electric mixer until fluffy.
- In a separate bowl or jug, lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla extract. Beat into the butter a little bit at a time.
- At this point, put a bowl and your electric whisk blades in the fridge to chill – this sounds odd but it helps get the consistency of the icing right.
- Sift the flour into the butter/sugar mix, add the milk and then fold together gently until you have a smooth mix. The cake batter should be a soft dropping consistency – you can add a little milk if it seems too thick.
- Spoon evenly into the paper cases – each one should be about half full. Leave to settle for a few minutes (this should help give you flatter tops for easier icing but don’t worry too much).
- Bake for around 15 minutes until lightly golden and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- When the cupcakes are cooled, core them using a cupcake corer. Fill the centre with strawberry jam.
- Put the whipped cream in the chilled bowl and beat with the chilled mixer blades until it begins to go frothy and bubbly.
- With the mixer going add the vanilla extract and then the icing sugar a bit at a time, continuously beating. Continue to whip until the cream holds its shape – it’s good to stop and test it occasionally as we don’t want to over whip it.
- Add the diced strawberries and fold them in gently.
- Pipe the cream onto the cupcakes and top with a slice of strawberry, pushing it gently down into the cream so it stays in position.
- Store the finished cupcakes in the fridge – you can remove them about 30 minutes before you want to serve them to bring them up to room temperature.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes