STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE CUPCAKES

There’s an endless world of ideas, flavours and decorations for cupcakes now, but i like to do small twists on classic flavours and these strawberry cheesecake ones are gorgeous.

I always make my sponges the same way whether that be large cakes or individual ones and the method is pretty much foolproof as long as you don’t over beat the mixture.

Ingredients:


200g Castor Sugar

200g Stork or Butter

3 Large Eggs

200g Self Raising Flour

Strawberry Essence

Buttercream:

125g salted butter

125g Full Fat Cream Cheese

500g Icing Sugar

Fresh Strawberries 

Cakes:

1. Pre heat your oven to 180c fan/300f or gas mark 4.

2. Beat the sugar and butter together either with a free standing mixer or handheld, on a high speed until the mixture has become fluffy looking and a lot lighter in colour, then add the eggs one by one beating well in between each addition. If your mixture looks like its curdled don’t worry, when you add the flour it will come back together.

3. At this point add one teaspoon of strawberry essence and the flour. Incorporate the flour into the cake batter gently so as not to knock out the air, once the mixture is completely combined and forming ribbons you’re ready to fill your cases.

4. You can use any size case you like, but I find the standard size (50/53mm base x 30/38mm deep) is the best.

5. Pop your empty cases into a cupcake or muffin tray then using a dessert spoon scoop up a spoonful of the mixture and using your index finger slide the mixture into the case so it’s about 2/3’s of the way up the case. Once they are all filled place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 10 - 12 minutes.

After this time gently press the top and if it bounces back and feels nice and spongy then they are done. Alternatively push a skewer into the cake and if it comes out clean it’s done.

Buttercream:

1. Now make your buttercream. Add the butter, cream cheese and icing sugar to your mixer, or into a bowl and whisk on a high speed for at least 5 minutes, stopping after a couple of minutes to have a good scrape round the bowl and check the consistency. Do not rush this part. The buttercream should turn white when it’s done and have a lovely billowy texture, it needs to be the consistency of extra thick cream, if not then add a splash of milk if it’s too stiff or touch more icing sugar if its too loose.

2. Then take half of the buttercream and put it in a bowl, add a drop of pink food colouring or if using a gel or paste wipe a bit in using a cocktail stick. Give the buttercream a good mix, adding more colouring if you need to, until you get the desired colour.

Icing:

1. To create the same effect as on our cakes you’ll need an open star nozzle. 

2. Drop your nozzle into a piping bag and cut off the end so that around half of the nozzle is poking out of the bag. Then fill the bag alternatively with the two buttercreams, one pink then one plain and so on.

3. Once your bag is filled, hold the piping bag directly over the centre of your cake with the nozzle a couple of centimetres from the top of the cake and give the bag a good squeeze, so as the buttercream creates ribbons, gently move the bag up, then pull away quickly to create a point. You don’t need to move the bag around just make sure it’s pointing straight down and not on an angle.

4. Hull the strawberries and cut into quarters length ways, then poke the flat edge into the buttercream so the point of the strawberry is facing up.

Then enjoy.