Berry Good!

I love it when inspiration hits.  It can come from nowhere and from there can come great things.  Like staring at my little raspberry bush, thinking about how lovely it was to have grown my own little spartan crop of sweet little berries and how nice they tasted.

Then remembering that I had quite a large bag of berries in the freezer that, while they were not fruit of my vine, were able to satiate my feelings of nostalgia for something sweet and berry-ful. 

I wanted to bake something, and I was thinking of the classic combination of white chocolate and raspberry.  You can usually find these as a muffin, though I wanted to do a riff on this and turn them into a cute little cupcake with the addition of a sweet vanilla butter cream.

The result?  Delicious.  You get the sharpness of the raspberry which cuts the sweetness of the white chocolate.  The butter cream works.  While you may think it a little overkill, it is a lip smacking addition.  There is nothing like feeling a little naughty when it comes to sweet things, so why not up the ante and smother them with frosting?

I took these to work to share for morning tea yesterday and got wonderful reviews.  (My colleagues are my most tough and honest critics).  Definitely part of my baking repertoire from now on.

Raspberry and White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes (Adapted from Best Recipes.com)

2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup castor sugar
2/3 cup white chocolate chips
120g melted butter, cooled slightly
1 egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup frozen raspberries

Preheat oven to 180C.  Line a 12 cup capacity muffin pan with cupcake liners.
Sift flour and baking powder, add sugar and choc chips.  Stir to combine.
Mix milk, melted butter, egg and vanilla and add to dry ingredients, fold gently to combine.  Add raspberries and fold through gently.  Spoon into liners to about 2/3 full and bake for 25 minutes.

Vanilla Butter cream

2 cups icing sugar
1 tbs butter
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbs milk

Sift icing sugar and add butter and mix into the sugar.  Add vanilla and milk, a little at a time, mixing until combined.  With electric beaters, beat until combined and fluffy.  The texture should be light but stiff enough to pipe or spread onto the cooled cakes - if you feel the mixture is too tight, add a little more milk and beat further, if it is too runny, sift in more icing sugar.  You can also add a few drops of food colouring to tint it if desired.

Until next time...

Kitty xx