It’s National Cupcake Week which means you have the excuse to bake or eat as many as you want!
There are some wonderfully creative recipes on the official website, including gluten-free sticky toffee pudding cupcakes, mojito and ‘mocktail’ cupcakes, and even savoury korma cupcakes. For even more inspiration, here are some of my creations.
National Cupcake Week is drawing to an end, but I didn’t think I could let it pass by without trying to make some gingerbread cupcakes. While they’re probably more appropriate for Christmas (at least I’m getting ahead!), their warm spiciness and dark sugariness are perfect as the weather gets colder.
You could easily ice these with normal icing or vanilla buttercream icing; I just love the flavour combination of gingerbread and cream cheese. I also didn’t want to make a very firm icing because then the sugary flavour would overpower the cream cheese flavour, but if you want an icing you can pipe high on top of the cupcakes, then just add some more icing sugar to the mixture.
GINGERBREAD CUPCAKES WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING
Prep time: 20-25 mins
Cook time: 15 mins
Makes 12 cupcakes
Uniced cupcakes can be frozen for up to a month
Gingerbread cupcakes
125g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground ginger
125g butter, softened
125g dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp golden syrup
Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan).
Sift the flour, baking powder and ground ginger together.
Sprinkle the muscovado sugar over the butter, breaking any lumps up as much as you can. Beat the butter and sugar with a handheld mixer, or in a food processor, until creamy.
At a slower speed, add the eggs (one at a time) and golden syrup.
Carefully fold in the flour mixture, being careful not to overmix it.
Divide the mixture between 12 cupcake cases and bake for 12-15 mins until cooked through when tested with a skewer. Cool on a wire rack.
Cream cheese icing
90g butter, softened
150g cream cheese, softened
400g icing sugar, sifted
A sprinkling of cinnamon to serve
Beat the butter until creamy and pale in colour.
Add the cream cheese and lightly beat together.
Mix in the icing sugar, lightly beating until creamy.
Once the cupcakes are cool, spread or pipe the icing on top. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon.
Tip: the cream cheese icing is quite soft; if you want a firmer icing that holds its shape better for piping higher, add more icing sugar to the mixture.
I'm an Aussie mum living in the UK (Surrey to be exact), who loves to feed people but who's struggled with the challenge of feeding my family healthy meals day after day without tearing my hair out! I'm hoping this blog will help me remember which dishes went down well and perhaps inspire you too.
Mindful Mum
thegingerbreadmum 