Ironcupcake London - Fruit

Last night was the 11th ironcupcake london event and as usual there was a fabulous turn out and more than 30 great entries to taste. Here is a sample of the line up.....

and these are the ones I shared with my friends - yum!!!! So hard to pick a favourite.....

The theme this month was fruit so I decided to try something new and came up with blueberry and earl grey cupcakes, topped with earl grey buttercream and a handmade vintage rose decoration. Nice and dainty......

Here's the recipe if you want to make them.....

Earl grey and blueberry cupcakes

Ingredients

Cupcakes (makes 12)

• 125ml semi-skimmed milk
• 4 Earl Grey tea bags (I used twinnings)
• 110g unsalted butter (softened)
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 125g self-raising flour (sifted)
• 125g plain flour (sifted)
• 1 cup of blueberries (washed)

Buttercream

• 250g unsalted butter (softened)
• 400g icing sugar (sifted)
• 2 tbsp semi-skimmed milk
• 2 tsp of earl grey tea leaves

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Heat milk in a saucepan to the boil, then remove from heat and add teabags. Infuse for 20 mins or until cooled. In the meantime, beat sugar and butter with electric beater for 5 minutes until light and fluffy (butter will change to a lighter colour). Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add flours and the tea-infused milk in two batches, mixing well each time. Lastly stir through blueberries (I like to keep them whole, but you can chop them up also). Spoon mixture into lined muffin trays (about two-thirds full), then bake for 15-20 minutes. Insert a toothpick into the centre of one of the cupcakes to see if they are done. If it comes out clean, it’s done! Remove cupcakes from oven, and let them cool for 10 minutes in the muffin tray before transferring them to a wire rack. Once they are completely cooled, decorate with a buttercream swirl.

To make the buttercream beat the butter and icing sugar on a slow speed for 5 minutes. Add milk to make icing a slightly softer consistency if desired. Sitr through tea leaves then put in piping bag, fitted with a star-shaped nozzle to pipe swirl on the cooled cupcakes.

To decorate the cupcakes, I used pale pink flowerpaste in a rose mould (Karen Davies) to make vintage rose toppers. Here's the mould......

I then used lustre dusts to colour the rose and the leaves. So pretty......

Next month is the 1 year birthday of ironcupcake london. Stay tuned for an update on my entry!

Happy baking xx