Sunday 8 May 2011

Cupcakes Violet Beauregarde aka Blueberry cupcakes!


I tweeted that these were some of the most delicious cupcakes I've ever made, and I hand on heart was not lying.

I had originally bought blueberries to try my hand at some blue velvets as I keep seeing them and think they look really fun, and perfect for boys who like cupcakes. However, I kept thinking back to the amazing blueberry and lemon cupcake I had from Ottolenghi and decided to have a go a recreating it!

First I made a compote which is incredibly easy (this makes a lot you could probably half it - or use the leftovers with yogurt for breakfast?)

Blueberry compote
175g fresh blueberries
50g caster sugar (I used golden)

Cook over a gentle heat, stirring occasionally, until the blueberries begin to pop and then remove from heat and leave to cool.

Next the cupcakes. They are a plain vanilla cupcake, using my favourite 'go to' recipe - however I had no milk in the house so instead used organic natural yogurt and it worked a treat (I'll give the measurements for both below).

Anne's favourite vanilla cupcakes
125g golden caster sugar
125g unsalted butter (room temp)
125g self raising flour
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons milk (I substituted approx 2.5 tablespoons yogurt - until I got dropping consistency)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees - I have a fan oven, and an oven thermometer (which I recommend everyone gets - the oven thermometer I mean).

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together with your mixer until light and fluffy. I do this for about 10mins to get a lot of air in.

Add the eggs, one by one and mix.

Mix in the flour and baking powder - I do this by hand as find the mixer knocks the air out of the flour and it makes a lighter cake. Than add the milk, or yogurt, and mix until all combined.

Scoop into cases using an ice cream scoop or a tablespoon. I get 10 large cupcakes out of this recipe - you can get 12 smaller ones though, it depends on your cases. In my oven these take just under 20 minutes. I find the house tends to smell of lovely baking and they're ready.  They are ready when you can stick a cake tester/cocktail stick in and it comes out clean.

Remove from oven and transfer immediately to a wire cooling rack.

Once cooled, use an apple corer to remove the centre of the cake and fill with a hearty amount of your cooled compote.


As you can see I didn't always hit the centre, but it's ok as you're going to cover them in lashings of delicious lemon frosting.

Best ever lemon frosting
100g cream cheese (full fat not light!)
40g unsalted butter, room temp
250g icing sugar (See note below)
lemon juice
lemon extract (I use Star Kay White)

Mix the butter and cream cheese for about 2 minutes in your mixer. Add icing sugar and then mix for about another 2 or 3 mins until smooth. Add lemon juice and some lemon essence to taste - I put in a few drops lemon juice and approx 1/2 a teaspoon to 1 teaspoon of lemon extract - tasting as I went. You want it to taste lemon'y and each persons taste buds are different.
Note: I added about two more tablespoons of icing sugar while adding the lemon extract as it thinned it out - you want it to be of piping consistency, ie not too runny!



Pipe onto the cupcakes and then plop a lovely blueberry on top and enjoy with a lovely cup of tea and decide whether they are the best cupcakes you have ever made. I think they're my favourites.


Finally, when making these I decided to test out some new Cath Kidston cupcake cases I got a while ago.


As you can see they were NOT worth the money. I'm a massive fan of Cath Kidston, I know it's a cliché to be a cupcake fan and love Cath but there you go, however these pretty much went translucent on baking. Not happy.

12 comments:

Abbie said...

They look ridiculously delicious! YUM!

NicolaCupcake said...

Love Blueberry's and these look mouthwatering...

This is a must recipe for me Thanks for Sharing, If I eat 5 are they equivalent to my 5 a day!!!

As an aside Boo to the Cath Kidston cases, nothing more disappointing than lovely looking cases just disappearing once baked

Anonymous said...

This is perfect timing - I need a vanilla cupcake recip.! I've been asked to do vanilla with chocolate icing, but a sneaky chocolate filling won't go amiss I'm pretty sure ;) Thanks for the idea!

Made With Pink said...

These sound delicious! I'm definitely going to have to try making them! I had a bunch of blueberries today, but I used them up in some muffins. Will have to try these soon, they look lush!

Jean said...

Wow, these look fabulous - got to give them a try soon.

I wonder if you would mind telling me what piping nozzle you use? The largest one I have been able to get still produces narrow swirls and I would love to be able to make big ones.

Anonymous said...

These look nothing short of sensational, am 100% making these! Love bluberries and lemon, good improvisation with the yoghurt!

Manny said...

These cakes were absolutely perfect, some of the best I have ever tasted! I am a lucky man indeed :) You should be well proud of yourself hun bun xxxx

The Caked Crusader said...

These look so pretty - the piping of the frosting is PERFECTION!|

Baking Addict said...

Wow these definitely look good. I must must try them soon as I love, love, love lemon and blueberry.
What a shame about the cupcake cases.

Carly Spencer-Ross said...

Those look absolutely stunning! Hate it when cases do that...look wonderful till you actually bake in them. Grr!

Wee Tait said...

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,how about a wee cupcake with chocolate melting out the middle please? =p

Unknown said...

Darn, I hate it when cases go translucent, so many of them do. Probably wrappers are the way to go if you want to guarantee cupcakes have patterns visible on packaging. These do look yummy!