Orange and poppy seed cupcakes with passion fruit butter cream

Rachel — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:53:59 +0000

There's something so appealing about tiny, citrusy cupcakes, bursting with the peppery tingle of poppy seeds. Oranges and poppy-seeds is one of those combinations that just works. These cupcakes just work too - they can be whipped up in no time and I guarantee they'll be light, yet moist.

Ingredients: Cake

125g self-raising flour, sifted
120g caster sugar
125g unsalted butter, chopped, room temperature
2 extra-large eggs
one large orange (or lemon): 3 tsp finely chopped zest and 2 TB juice
3 TB poppy seeds
2-3 TB milk
good quality marmalade, for glazing

Ingredients: Icing

2 TB passionfruit pulp, strained to separate seeds
125g unsalted butter, chopped, room temperature
220g well sieved icing sugar

Method: Cake

cupcake glazed with orange marmalade

Preheat oven to 180C (not fan forced) for mini cupcakes, or 200C (not fan forced) for standard size cupcakes.

Take eggs, butter and milk out of the fridge to come to room temperature. While that's happening, measure out the other ingredients and get everything ready.

Stir 2 TB milk into the poppyseeds in a small bowl. The poppyseeds should start making 'zingy' noises.

Combine flour, sugar, butter, eggs and 2tsp of the orange rind in the large bowl of a food processor, don't over-mix.

Add the freshly squeezed orange juice through the top of the processor while pulsing the mix.

If more liquid is required to make a smooth batter, add half to a TB of milk.

Fold the poppyseeds into the batter with a metal spoon. Add remaining chopped orange zest to taste.

Spoon the batter into muffin tins lined with cupcake papers. The mixture will make 36 mini cupcakes or 12 regular size.

Bake mini cupcakes for 8-10 minutes and regular cakes for 15 minutes. The tops will spring back when gently prodded.

When done, immediately take the cupcakes out of the tins and onto wire racks.

While cakes are still warm, use a pastry brush or bread knife to carefully spread gently warmed marmalade on the tops of the cupcakes.

Method: Icing

iced with passion fruit butter cream

Beat butter with electric beaters until pale and fluffy

Beat in half of the icing sugar and half of the juice from the passionfruit pulp until combined

Beat in the second half of the icing sugar and passionfruit juice.

Add a little extra milk (1/2 to a TB) if required to make a very light and fluffy icing

Pipe icing onto cooled cupcakes.

If desired, decorate with reserved passionfruit seeds or curls of orange zest.

I like my citrus cupcakes to have a gently rounded top. If you prefer a flat top, underfill the cases slightly and drop the oven temperature a little.

Butter and sugar make the world go around

Rachel — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:48:45 +0000

Everybody likes cupcakes. Besides being tragically cute, the small portions make us feel a little less Miss Piggy and a little more Grace Kelly. And I've never met a man who has refused one of my cupcakes, even when decorated with pink fluffy clouds of buttercream icing.

photo credit: Had a bad day, dear?

The best bit is that cupcakes are as easy (and as inexpensive) to make as you want.

My never-fail recipe for coffee cupcakes follows. If coffee isn't your thing (shame on you) then you can use the recipe as a base for a multitude of different variations. Let me tell you how.

My recipe is heavily inspired by Nigella Lawson, whose cupcake recipe can be found in her classic book How to be a Domestic Goddess. My variations involve substituting coffee for milk, homemade buttercream for packet icing and cutting down the sugar to a less sickly level.

Even though this recipe cheats and uses a food processor instead of creaming the butter and sugar in a mixer, the cupcakes turn out beautifully light and fluffy. I don't know how it works but it does, you'll just have to trust me.

This recipe uses pantry basics and costs almost nothing to make. The tiny portions mean that there will be enough to go around in the staff room and you will impress everyone with barely any effort.

Ingredients (cake)

125g unsalted butter, softened and chopped
125g self-raising flour, well sifted
100-120(ish)g caster sugar (adjust to taste)
2 eggs
pinch of salt
2-3 TB fresh espresso, cooled
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of allspice

Ingredients (icing)

125g unsalted butter, softened, chopped
220g pure icing sugar, sifted
2-3 TB fresh espresso, chilled
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
food colouring (optional)

Method (cake)

Pre-heat oven (not fan-forced) to 190 degrees celcius.

Prepare mini-muffin tins with tiny paper muffin cases. This recipe will make 36. (Alternatively you can make 12 regular sized cupcakes, just adjust the cooking temp to 200 C and cook for 15 minutes.)

Combine all cake ingredients other than the espresso in the bowl of a food processor. Whizz until combined. Pour the espresso down the food processor's funnel and process on 'pulse' until the mixture forms a smooth, dripping consistency.

Use a teaspoon (and an extra one to push the mixture out) to evenly fill the mini-muffin cups.

Cook the cupcakes for about 7-8 minutes or until lightly browned and the tops spring back when gently prodded. Allow to cool on wire racks while you make the icing.

Method (icing)

photo credit: buttercream

Beat butter and vanilla extract in an electric mixer until as white as possible (this will take a while).

Beat in icing sugar and espresso in two batches (I usually add 100g of sugar and 1 TB of espresso each batch, adding more to taste).

Add food colouring if desired, and mix through.

Pipe buttercream onto cupcakes. If you don't have a piping bag and can't be bothered making one out of greaseproof paper, smoosh the icing onto the cakes with a butter knife or palette knife.

Serve. The cupcakes won't last long!

Variation: if you don't like coffee, use milk (same quantity) in both the cake and icing recipes.

Have you tried my recipe for orange and poppy seed cupcakes with passionfruit butter cream yet?

Beyond Beeton» cupcakes