Recipe: Raspberry & White Chocolate Cupcakes

It's been quite a while since I shared a recipe here on Just Jess, which makes me sad - I love cooking and baking, but somehow sharing what I've been making has slipped by the wayside. I've got a few things I'm hoping to share in the coming weeks, starting today with these Raspberry & White Chocolate Cupcakes. I actually made these at the weekend with my step-daughters, but trying to take photos whilst also ensuring that an enthusiastic three- and four-year-old don't eat all the cake mix / break eggs / cut their fingers off didn't seem like a good plan. This gave me the perfect excuse to recreate our baking endeavours so as to take photos - and, coincidentally, double the levels of cake in our house. Perfect. This recipe is actually just a super-easy adaptation of a really basic Vanilla Cupcake recipe, but it works so well and makes your cakes seem a little bit fancier than plain vanilla!
Start by preheating the oven to 170°C and lining a 12-hole cupcake tin with paper cases. Then, sift 120g Plain flour, 140g Caster sugar, 40g Unsalted butter (at room temperature) and 1½tsp Baking powder into a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until the mixture resembles sand. Measure out 120ml Milk, and pour half into the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Beat an egg and ¼tsp Vanilla extract into the remaining milk, then add to the mixture and beat for a couple of minutes, until smooth.
Roughly chop 60g White chocolate (or just use white chocolate chips!) and add to the mixture. Finally, stir in by hand 75g Frozen raspberries (you could use fresh ones, but frozen are cheaper and are also easier to mix in without squashing them), and pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Pop in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until firm and light golden-brown. Allow to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes, then turn out to cool completely on a wire rack.
While the cupcakes cool, prepare your white chocolate buttercream frosting; in your electric mixer beat 60g softened, unsalted butter with 200g Icing sugar and a little milk, until smooth and white. Melt 40g white chocolate and pour into the buttercream, continuing to beat on high with the mixer. Add a few drops food colouring if you like - I used pink. Beat for a further five minutes or so - the longer you beat it, the lighter and fluffier it will be.
Frost your cupcakes using a piping bag, or a teaspoon like we did, and add decorations - I used silver sugar balls, sugar butterflies and pink sugar, whilst the little ones also included snowmen because it is definitely still Christmas...
And it's that simple! I've mentioned before that I think it's really good for kids to help with cooking, I know ours love it, and as well as keeping them entertained and being a creative outlet, I also think it's really important for them to learn from an early age where food comes from! Age-dependent, they can help with things like stirring, adding ingredients to the mixture, breaking up chocolate, helping to read the numbers on the scales/measuring jugs, and of course decorating at the end. We also talk about where things like eggs and milk come from, and what happens when we put the cakes in the oven. It's a really lovely way to spend an afternoon with your kids and as an added bonus, you get to eat cake at the end of it!
What's your favourite kind of cupcake? If you have kids, do you let them help in the kitchen? What's your top child-friendly recipe?

xo
My Featured Blogger this month is the lovely Anna from AnnieMAC; hop on over to her blog for tutorials, reviews and more!