Blueberry Shortcake Cupcakes

Hi Everyone! A mid-week post - how exciting!!!

I have not done some baking for a while as I have been a busy crafty bee, so decided it was time to have a go at the cupcakes again. I decided to be a little more adventurous with my cupcakes today, as I wanted something a bit different besides vanilla.

One flavour took me a while to think up, but after thinking of lots of combinations to put together, I came up with:

Blueberry Shortcake Cupcakes

I really love blueberries and they are an excellent antioxidant for the winter time. I kept thinking about different flavours that might go well and I decided on shortcake. A quick look on the internet found no ready-made recipes for Blueberry Shortcake cupcakes, so I made my own up that I can share with you as I followed no one else's recipe.

1.Wash and cut the blueberries into quarters.

2. Crush some shortbread biscuits using a rolling pin.

Using your favourite vanilla cupcake recipe, make a normal batter mix:

3. 125g butter and 125g sugar - whisk together.

4. Whisk 2 large eggs then add to the butter and sugar mix adding a tablespoon of the 125g of flour to stop the mixture separating. 

5. At this point I added my blueberries and gave them a little whizz around the mixture. 

6. Fold in the crushed shortbread biscuit and the remaining  flour.

7. Add a 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla paste or a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

8. Add 2 tablespoons of semi-skimmed milk.

9. Put the mixture into cupcake cases.

 LORNA'S TIP: I put paper cases into silicone cupcake cases and the silicone cases support the paper cases, so the batter doesn't push the sides of the cases. You can then take them out the silicone cases once they have cooked and they are in the paper cases so you can give them to people! 

ICING AND DECORATING

I like to get my decoration bits and icing made during the cooking and cooling time of the cupcakes.

1. Roll out some Regal / Sugar paste icing. 

LORNA'S TIP: Make sure you put lots of icing sugar under the sugar paste, but also put some clingfilm over the top of the icing so you rolling pin doesn't stick to the icing. Also, roll out in one direction, rather than going backwards and forwards. 

2. Using a small flower cutter, cut out a enough flowers for all your cupcakes. 

3. Put a blueberry in the centre of the flower. 

4. Next, making a butter icing by mixing 75g of butter with 225g of icing sugar, 2 tablespoons of milk and 1/4 teaspoon or vanilla paste.

5. Add a little a bit blue food colouring and even less red food colouring and mix into the icing to create a nice purple colour icing.

FINISHING TOUCHES

Once your cupcakes have completely cooled, using a piping bag and nozzle, pipe the purple icing onto the cupcake and put the flower on top.

I then decorated my cupcakes with sugar pearls to finish them off.

Have fun and enjoy making these, something that looks a bit different or something completely different!! What fun styles can you come up with?