Table of Contents

• The You’re On Your Own, Kid Cupcake: Explained
• Sugar Daisies
• Blackberry Compote
• Gingerbread Cupcakes
• Filling the Cupcakes
• Cream Cheese Icing
• Assembling the Cupcakes
• Recipe

The You’re On Your Own, Kid Cupcake: Explained

The You’re On Your Own, Kid Cupcake has 4 main elements:

• Gingerbread cake
• Blackberry compote
• Cream cheese icing
• Sugar daisies

It took me a little while to work out what kind of flavours I wanted to use for this cupcake. In the end, I decided to focus on one of the song’s major recurring themes: seasons changing, specifically, summer turning to autumn and, eventually, winter. We can see this theme in the very first line: ‘Summer went away’, but it is picked up again (albeit more subtly), in the first line of the chorus, where Swift sings ‘From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes’. I wanted this cupcake to encapsulate that late summer/early autumn feeling, when the nights are getting longer and the weather is cooling down. Luckily, here in the UK, we’ve just been living through that period of the year, so I had plenty of inspiration all round me.

Eventually, I decided on a blackberry and gingerbread cupcake. Gingerbread is such a quintessentially autumn/winter thing for me- I associate it so strongly with Halloween, with Bonfire Night and with Christmas. Blackberry season falls in late summer/early autumn, so it felt like a perfect addition to these cakes (also, we have an abundance of blackberries stashed in our freezer from my parent’s blackberry-picking endeavours this year, so it all worked out!). To get the blackberry flavour into the cakes, I made a homemade compote, which I used to both fill and decorate the cupcakes.

I opted to ice these cupcakes with cream cheese icing because I thought that it would compliment both the gingerbread and blackberry flavours best. To add even more blackberry flavour (and an extra bit of decoration), I swirled some more compote into the icing. Coincidentally (and rather grotesquely- sorry!), this also ended up as a bit of an accidental nod to another line in the song: ‘I looked around in a blood-soaked gown’, so there’s that, too.

For decoration, there were two lines from the song that I really wanted to draw on for inspiration: ‘So long, Daisy May’ (random, I know, but I just like it) and ‘So make the friendship bracelets’. The latter line has become a really significant part of Swift’s recent Eras Tour, with fans making their own friendship bracelets to trade with each other, so I felt I absolutely had to include some sort of reference to it with this cupcake. I decided to make edible daisies from sugar florist paste, then arrange them around the iced cupcake in a circle, like a sort-of daisy chain friendship bracelet. I really love how it turned out!

Essentially, then, these are gingerbread cupcakes, filled with homemade blackberry compote, topped with cream cheese icing and more compote, then decorated with an edible daisy ‘friendship bracelet’. I think they look so pretty and I can confirm that they taste DELICIOUS.

Let’s get into some specifics, shall we?

Sugar Daisies

You need to start by making the edible daisy decorations, because they need a while to dry out and harden up. For each You’re On Your Own, Kid Cupcake, you’ll need about 12 daisies. That, of course, is if you plan to decorate your cupcakes like me, with a friendship bracelet of daisies all around the edge of the cupcake. You can absolutely decorate your cupcakes however you please with as many, or as few, daisies as you would like.

To make the daisies, you will need the following ingredients:

• White sugar florist paste (I used this brand).

Ideally, you want to use sugar florist paste to make the flowers. It’s very similar to sugar paste, modelling paste and even fondant, but it has a few unique attributes that make it perfect for this: firstly, unlike fondant and sugar paste it dries completely hard, so your flowers will keep their shape perfectly once they have hardened. Secondly, it dries much more quickly than modelling paste, which will save you some time. Thirdly (and finally), it is quite a stretchy, flexible paste, so it is perfect for making delicate petals.

None of this is to say you can’t use the other options to make these daisies- just be aware that they might not work quite so well as the florist paste. It is a bit of a specialist item, but it is readily available online. I purchased mine from The Cake Decorating Company, which is my current go-to for specialist baking supplies.

• Marzipan

This ingredient isn’t strictly necessary- you could absolutely substitute it with more of the florist paste, or even some fondant, tinted with yellow food colouring, to make the centres of the daisies. I just happened to not have any yellow food colouring to hand, but I did have some marzipan, so I went with it.

Ironically, I actually used white marzipan for this. The brand I buy (Waitrose own) is actually a creamy yellow colour, as opposed to a perfect white, which is kind of weird, but we’ll roll with it. Essentially, you just need some sort of yellow modelling paste that you can roll into teeny-tiny little balls to place in the centre of each daisy.

• Icing sugar

Just a little, to dust your work surface/rolling pin, so that the florist paste does not stick.

• Dried split peas

A rogue inclusion, I know, but don’t worry- you won’t actually be eating these. I just found that they were the perfect size/shape to dry the flowers over, which gives the daisies a more 3D shape. As a bonus, the flat side of the split peas means they don’t roll around, which makes things much easier.

Please do take into account who will be eating your cupcakes though- obviously no one is going to suspect that their cupcake has come into contact with a split pea, so just be careful of allergies/sensitivities. If you don’t want to use split peas, you can either look for something a similar size and shape, or you can dry the flowers directly over the marzipan centres (the flowers will be a little flatter, but that is obviously preferable to accidentally poisoning your friends).

Alongside these ingredients, you will also need some specialist equipment:

• Daisy plunge cutter

I used the 19mm cutter from this pack, but you can use any daisy-shaped cutter. Plunge cutters make it much easier to keep all of the petals in tact with delicate things like this, so I prefer them here.

• A tapered/ball modelling tool

This is entirely optional, but I like to indent the daisies a little before drying them over the split peas, to help them get that 3D shape. I actually used the tapered ‘plunger’ element of one of these plunge cutters, but any small modelling tool will do really. If you don’t have one, try the end of a chopstick, or just skip this step entirely and leave the daisies to set over the split peas- they’ll be slightly less 3D, but will still have some dimension.

You will also need a rolling pin, as well as a large baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper.

Before you start, spread some of the dried split peas onto your baking tray- you’ll need 1 per flower. Position them so the flat sides are sitting against the tray and the rounded side is facing up. This is a little bit time-consuming, but it’s best to get this step out of the way now.

Once you have all of your ingredients/equipment assembled, you can start making the daisies. Knead the florist paste between your hands until it is smooth and pliable. Dust a clean work surface and rolling pin with icing sugar, then roll out the paste very thinly- plunge cutters aren’t really sharp at all, so if your paste is too thick, you won’t get a clean cut on your daisies. Once your paste is rolled out, you can cut the daisies- you’ll need about 12 per cupcake (so 144 in total!).

Once you have cut all of the daisies, place them, one at a time, into the palm of your hand, with the right side facing up. Use the modelling tool (if using) to press into the centre of the daisy, making an indent. Flip the daisy upside down and lay it over one of the split peas on the baking sheet, so that it will dry in the shape you have created. Repeat this for all of the daisies, then leave them to dry out overnight, or until hard (otherwise they won’t keep their shape). Once hard, the daisies will keep for a super long time, as long as they are stored in an airtight container and don’t get wet (if you intend to store the daisies for a long time, I recommend storing them without the marzipan centres, as marzipan contains more moisture than sugar florist paste. The marzipan will be fine for a couple of days, but any longer than that and you might encounter some sweating).

To add the yellow centres to the daisy, just take a tiny pinch of your marzipan (or other yellow modelling paste). Roll it into a ball between your dominant index finger and the palm of your non-dominant hand, then gently press it into the centre of the daisy. Repeat as needed.

Blackberry Compote

Next up, you want to make the blackberry compote, so that it can cool down in time for you to assemble the cakes. You can also make the compote ahead of time- stored in an airtight container in the fridge, it will keep for about a week. This compote only requires three ingredients:

• Frozen blackberries

I like to use frozen blackberries, just because it’s easier to find them year-round, but you can use fresh if you prefer (just be aware that the compote will probably take a little less time than stated- don’t burn it!).

• Caster sugar

You could use granulated sugar, if that’s what you have on hand- just make sure you give it enough time to dissolve fully. I wouldn’t recommend using brown sugar, because it will affect the flavour of the finished compote.

• Lemon juice

You just need a little squeeze of fresh juice, but it makes all the difference- it brings out the flavour of the blackberries, but also livens up the compote with a fresh and zingy tang.

To make the compote, place the frozen berries and the caster sugar into a small saucepan over medium heat.

Stir every now and then until the mixture starts to bubble. At this point, reduce the heat to low and simmer gently for 35-40 minutes, stirring frequently to make sure it does not catch (if you see any indications of this, turn the heat down a little more). The blackberries should break down by themselves during this time, but you can give them a little mash with a fork/the back of a spatula to help the process along.

Once the fruit has all broken down and the compote is thick and jammy (see reference photo below), take the pan off the heat.

Pass the compote through a heatproof sieve, set over an equally heatproof bowl, and use the back of a spoon to press it through. This will remove the seeds, leaving you with a smooth compote. If your compote is a bit too thin at this stage, you can return it to the saucepan and allow it to simmer gently to reduce it a little more.

The last step is to add a squeeze of lemon juice to the strained compote and mix it in well. Allow the compote to cool before transferring it to an airtight container and placing into the fridge until it’s time to assemble the cupcakes. Stored like this, it should last for about a week.

Gingerbread Cupcakes

These gingerbread cupcakes have all the flavour of a lightly spiced gingerbread, with the texture of a typical cupcake. That is to say- these cupcakes aren’t dark and sticky in the same way that a traditional gingerbread cake is, but are still warm and spicy, just a little more subtly. I like to think of them as gingerbread biscuits in cake form!

These cupcakes are super easy to make- they use my All-In-One Method for cake batter, so they come together super quickly- the hardest part is measuring the treacle!

For the cupcake batter, you will need:

• Stork

As always with my cake batters, I like to use Stork (a brand of baking margarine), because I think it makes for a lighter, fluffier cake. If you don’t want to use Stork, or can’t find it, you can substitute an equal amount of softened unsalted butter.

• Caster sugar

It’s best to use caster sugar (as opposed to granulated sugar) when using the All-In-One Method, because it incorporates into the batter more quickly.

• Self-raising flour

It’s important to use self-raising flour to help the cupcakes rise. If you only have plain flour, you’ll need to add baking powder.

• Bicarbonate of soda

This recipe uses treacle, which is acidic, so it also contains bicarbonate of soda, which is alkaline, to balance out the flavours.

• Spices

The spices are what make these cupcakes so quintessentially gingerbread-y. I use a combination of cinnamon, ginger and cloves for a warm and spicy gingerbread flavour.

• Eggs

As with all of my recipes, I use large eggs.

• Milk

Ideally, you should use whole milk for all baking. I very rarely have whole milk in the house, so I almost always used skimmed milk and I’ve never had any problems, so just use whatever you have.

• Treacle

You don’t need much, but a little bit of treacle helps to lend that iconic gingerbread flavour to these cupcakes. If you don’t have treacle, you could substitute an equal amount of molasses- the flavour may be slightly more intense, but it will still taste delicious.

Once you have all of your ingredients, you can get on with making the cupcakes. Start by lining a 12-hole cupcake tray with paper cases (I used these burgundy cases from Purple Cupcakes– the same ones I used for my Maroon cupcakes, because I thought that they matched the colour of the blackberry compote nicely), and preheat the oven 170°C.

After that, it’s simply a case of putting all of the cake batter ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on a low speed, whisk the batter until it starts to come together, then gradually increase the speed to maximum and beat until the batter is light and fluffy- it will only take about a minute of whisking in total. For a more in-depth walkthrough of this technique, check out my Wimbledon Cake recipe, where I go through the whole thing in much more detail.

Once your batter is ready, divide it between the 12 cupcake cases. I like to use a regular-sized ice cream scoop to do this, but you can use two spoons if you prefer.

Bake the cupcakes in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until they spring back after being touched gently. I like to remove the cupcakes from the tray as soon as they come out of the oven and transfer them to a wire rack to cool, so that the cases do not become greasy, but do be careful if you do this because they will be very hot. Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before filling/decorating.

Filling the Cupcakes

When I made these cupcakes, I swirled a little bit of blackberry compote into the batter before baking the cakes. In all honesty: it looked great, but you could barely taste it! When you’ve gone to all the trouble of making the compote, and when the blackberry plays such a big role in the ‘story’ of these cupcakes, that just wouldn’t do!

Because of this, I have written the recipe to include a different method of incorporating the blackberry compote into the cupcakes, which will really help it to live up to its fullest blackberry potential: I recommend filling the cupcakes with some fresh compote after they have baked- think like a Victoria Sponge, filled with jam, only these are Gingerbread cupcakes, filled with compote. Sounds good, right?

Filling cupcakes is super easy to do. Essentially, you just need to remove some of the cake, fill the leftover hole with compote, then add part of the removed cake back on top to seal in the filling. There are a couple of ways you can do this:

• Use an apple corer

Line the apple corer up with the centre, then apply slight pressure, while twisting slowly. The serrated edge will cut through the cupcake. Go down about half way into the cupcake, then remove the corer (along with the cut cylinder of cake). Add some compote to the cavity (you can use a jug, a spoon or even a piping bag to do this). Finally, use a small, serrated knife to trim the bottom off the cylinder of cake you removed, then push the top back into the cupcake, to seal in the filling.

• Use a knife

If you don’t have an apple corer, you can use a small, serrated knife to create the cavity. Hold the knife as close to vertical as possible, and carve out a small circle in the centre of the cupcake. Use the knife to wiggle the cake out of the circle, then fill and seal up as above.

Once all of your cupcakes are filled with compote, you can decorate them.

Cream Cheese Icing

I’ve posted a few recipes that use cream cheese icing here on the blog, so I won’t go into too much detail here. If you would like to read a full walkthrough of how to make perfectly pipeable cream cheese icing, you can find that here. Essentially though, there are two main rules you have to follow if you want a thick and smooth icing, instead of a sloppy mess:

• Use full-fat cream cheese

Trust me, low-fat just won’t work for this- you’ll end up with a super thin icing that just can’t be remedied by adding more icing sugar.

• Don’t overmix the cream cheese

Unlike butter, cream cheese doesn’t really respond well to being whipped up a lot. Try to minimise your mixing once the cream cheese has been added- this will help you to achieve a lovely, thick icing.

Not following one/both of these guidelines will inevitably leave you with soupy cream cheese icing that doesn’t hold up when piped and is kind of… unpleasant to eat? Save yourself the bother and follow my two Cream Cheese Commandments for perfect cream cheese icing, every time.

Assembling the Cupcakes

Finally, we have reached the assembly stage- in the homestretch now!

Start by putting your cream cheese icing into a piping bag, fitted with a large round tip. This time, I tried out attaching a food clip to the top of the filled bag, to prevent the icing from coming out the top and I thought it worked really well- I’ll definitely be using this trick again!

Pipe a big swirl of icing onto each cupcake- I like to start in the middle, applying an even pressure as I slowly move out and draw a circle around the circumference of the cake, then work my way up in a spiral. If you have an ever bigger piping nozzle than me, you could just keep the piping bag in the centre of the cake and lift it up gently as you apply pressure, to achieve one big dome of icing. Either way, the icing is going to be largely obscured by compote, so it doesn’t have to be too perfect.

Next up, you want to add some blackberry compote. I used a teaspoon to drizzle some right on top of the icing but, again, you could use a piping bag for more control, if you prefer.

Using a cocktail stick, or a small, sharp knife, swirl the compote into the icing a little. Don’t overdo this, or you’ll just end up with pink icing, but marbling it slightly will make the cupcakes look super pretty. Embrace the intentionally messy look!

Finally, just press the hardened sugar daisies onto the icing. I did a ring of them all around the base of the icing, to mimic the look of a friendship bracelet, but you can add the flowers wherever you want.

Et voilà! You’ve got yourself 12 blackberry and gingerbread cupcakes, inspired by ‘You’re On Your Own, Kid‘, by Taylor Swift. I hope you’ve enjoyed this 5th instalment of my Taylor Swift Cupcakes Series! Let me know what you think of the latest cupcake in the comments down below!

Gemma

xxx

Recipe

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‘You’re On Your Own, Kid’ Cupcakes

Inspired by Taylor Swift's 'You're On Your Own, Kid', these gingerbread cupcakes are filled with homemade blackberry compote, topped with a blackberry/cream cheese swirled icing and decorated with an edible daisy chain friendship bracelet- perfect for when summer goes away, but the yearning (for cake) stays.

Course Dessert, Snack

Keyword Blackberry, Compote, Cream cheese, Cream cheese icing, Gingerbread, Sugarpaste daisy, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift Cupcakes

Prep Time 2 hours hours

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Drying time 12 hours hours

Servings 12 cupcakes

Equipment

• 1 19mm daisy plunger cutter (see Note 1).
• 1 tapered/ball modelling tool (see Note 2).

Ingredients

For the sugar daisies:

• 60-70 g sugar florist paste (see Note 3).
• 10-15 g marzipan (see Note 4).
• Icing sugar, for dusting.
• Dried split peas (see Note 5).

For the blackberry compote:

• 200 g blackberries (I used frozen, but you can use fresh if you have them).
• 60 g caster sugar
• 1 lemon

For the gingerbread cupcakes:

• 200 g Stork (see Note 6).
• 190 g caster sugar
• 180 g self-raising flour
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbsp milk
• 3/4 tbsp treacle

For the cream cheese icing:

• 100 g unsalted butter, softened
• 160 g full-fat cream cheese
• 560 g icing sugar, sifted

Instructions

For the sugar daisies:

• Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper. Spread out split peas (1 per cupcake) onto the tray, domed sides up, then set aside.
• Dust a clean work surface and rolling pin with icing sugar. Knead the sugar florist paste between your hands until malleable, then roll out as thinly as possible. Use the daisy-shaped plunge cutter to punch out 144 daisies (maybe a few extra, just in case!). As you make each daisy, push it out of the cutter into the palm of your hand, then use the modelling tool to press the centre of the flower to give it a cupped shape. Place each daisy upside down over a dried split pea on the lined tray and leave to harden for at least 12 hours.
• Once the daisies have hardened, make the marzipan centres. Knead the marzipan between your hands until malleable, then take a tiny pinch of the paste and roll it between the palm of your non-dominant hand and the index finger of your dominant hand, to form a tiny ball. Carefully lift a daisy off its split pea, then press the marzipan ball into the centre, where the pea has made the indent. Repeat for all the daisies and set aside in a cool, dry place until ready to decorate.

For the blackberry compote:

• Place the blackberries and sugar into a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir every now and then, until the mixture starts to bubble, then turn the heat down to low and simmer gently for 35-40 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent the compote from sticking and to help break up the berries.
• Once the fruit has all broken down and the compote is thick and jammy, remove the pan from the heat. Pass the compote through a heatproof sieve, pushing it through with the back of a spoon, to remove the seeds.
• Add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to the strained compote and stir it through, then transfer the compote to an airtight container and store in the fridge until ready to use, or up to a week.

For the gingerbread cupcakes:

• Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a 12-hole cupcake tin with cupcake cases and set aside.
• Place all of the cupcake ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on low speed to incorporate all of the dry ingredients, then gradually increase the speed to full, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Whisk the batter until it is light and fluffy- this shouldn't take longer than about 1 minute.
• Divide the batter between the 12 cupcake cases (I use an ice cream scoop to do this), then bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, until the cakes spring back when touched gently. Immediately transfer the cakes to a wire rack (to prevent any greasy cases), then leave to cool completely before filling/decorating.

For the cream cheese icing:

• In a large bowl, beat the softened butter for 1-2 minutes with an electric mixer, until smooth and noticeably paler.
• Add the cream cheese and mix into the butter by hand until incorporated.
• Sift in the icing sugar and mix by hand until incorporated. Use electric mixer to beat for 10-15 seconds only, until fluffy, but still thick and stiff. Transfer the icing to a piping bag, fitted with a large, round nozzle, ready to pipe onto the cakes.

To fill the cupcakes:

• Once the cakes are completely cool, use an apple corer/sharp knife to remove a small circle of cake from the top of each cupcake. Use a spoon or piping bag to fill the cavity with a small amount of blackberry compote, then trim the bottoms of the removed cake pieces and insert the tops back into the holes, to seal in the filling.

To decorate:

• Pipe a large swirl of cream cheese icing onto each cupcake. Use a spoon or piping bag to drizzle a small amount of blackberry compote on top of the icing, then use a sharp knife/cocktail stick to swirl it in. Press 12 sugar daisies into the icing, all around the base of the swirl, to give the appearance of a daisy chain-inspired friendship bracelet.
• Because of the cream cheese icing, these cupcakes are best served immediately, or within 1 hour of assembling, if kept at (a cool) room temperature. They will keep for about 2 days if stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

Notes

1. Daisy plunger cutter: I used the 19mm cutter from this pack, but any daisy cutter will do. I like the plunge ones because the petals can be tricky to get out of normal cutters, but use what you have. 
2. Modelling tool: this is optional- it just helps to give your daisies more dimension. If you don’t have one, try using a chopstick instead. You could even skip this step and just set the daisies over the split peas instead, but the finished daisies will be slightly flatter.
3. Sugar florist paste: Florist paste is different to sugar paste, fondant or modelling paste- it is more flexible and dries harder. That’s not to say you can’t use the other ones to make the daisies, it might just be a little trickier/more time consuming.
4. Marzipan: I used marzipan for the centres of my flowers, because it is what I had, but you could use any sort of modelling paste (even a little sugar florist paste), dyed yellow, if you prefer. 
5. Dried split peas: worry not- you won’t actually be eating the dried split peas, they are just the perfect size/shape to dry the sugar daisies over to give them the right shape when they have hardened. You’ll need one dried split pea for each daisy.
6. Stork: as always, I like to use Stork in place of butter in my cakes, because I think it makes for a lighter, fluffier sponge. If you prefer, you can substitute the Stork for an equal amount of softened, unsalted butter. 

 

The recipes for the gingerbread cupcakes, blackberry compote and cream cheese icing have all been adapted from ‘The Crumbs and Doilies Recipe Book’ by Cupcake Jemma.

Table of Contents

• The ‘Snow on the Beach’ Cupcake: Explained
• Salted Caramel Ice Cream
• Making the Buttery Biscuit Bases
• Making the Chocolate Cupcakes
• Making the Marshmallow-y Meringue Icing
• Decorating the Cupcakes
• Notes on Making Ahead/Serving
• Recipe

The ‘Snow on the Beach’ Cupcake: Explained

The Snow on the Beach Cupcake is a Salted Caramel S’mores Baked Alaska Cupcake. I know, I know… so extra, right? But I ask you, what says beach more than S’mores (and Ken, obviously)? What says sea more than salt(ed caramel)? What says snow more than ice cream? Frankly, my hands were tied. Anyway, this Salted Caramel S’mores Baked Alaska Cupcake can be broken down into 5 main elements:

• Buttery biscuit base (the digestive/graham cracker part of the S’more).
• Chocolate cupcake (the chocolate part of the S’more and the cake part of the Baked Alaska).
• Salted caramel ice cream (the ice cream part of the Baked Alaska– salted caramel because the sea water is salty!).
• Marshmallow-y meringue icing (the marshmallow part of the S’more and the meringue part of the Baked Alaska).
• Digestive crumb (just for some extra sandy decoration!).

Essentially then, this is a chocolate cupcake, baked directly on top of a buttery, digestive biscuit base, topped with a scoop of salted caramel ice cream, which is covered in a super-tasty, marshmallow/meringue hybrid, which is sprinkled with some more digestive crumbs, for good measure. The meringue is then toasted a little to give it some colour and there you have it! A Salted Caramel S’mores Baked Alaska Cupcake. It is, quite literally, Snow on the Beach. In the words of Taylor, it’s weird, but it’s f****** beautiful. Also, it’s super delicious and I want to eat it forever and ever. Let’s get into it, shall we?

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

You’ll need some salted caramel ice cream for these cupcakes. I’m using my homemade version (you can find the recipe for that here!), but you can use shop-bought if you prefer! Salted Caramel is a super popular ice cream flavour, so you’ll likely be able to find some at your local supermarket.

If you do want to make your own, remember to make the ice cream in advance! Ice cream isn’t too tricky to make, but it does require a significant amount of freezing/chilling time. The ice cream needs to be fully churned and frozen before you scoop it onto the cakes, so try to make it at least the day before you want to assemble your cupcakes.

Of course, if you don’t like salted caramel ice cream, you can absolutely use any other flavour of ice cream you like- you won’t get the same salty vibe, but you’ll still get the snow!

Making the Buttery Biscuit Bases

I am such a fan of a buttery biscuit base. I mean… cheesecake? Sign me up. Banoffee pie? YES, please. One of my FAVOURITE ways to utilise the buttery biscuit base, though, is to bake it right into brownies and chocolate cakes. As with most of my baking techniques, I learnt this method from Cupcake Jemma. Essentially, you make a buttery biscuit base as usual, then press it into your baking tin, add the batter right on top and bake the whole thing as usual. You end up with cakes and bakes with a super fun, deliciously crunchy base. I love to use this method when I’m making S’mores-inspired bakes: think S’mores brownies, S’mores cakes & S’mores cupcakes- the latter of which, of course, is exactly what we’re doing here. These buttery biscuit bases are going to represent the digestive biscuit/graham cracker element of a S’more, lending the required biscuit-y taste and texture to our bake.

Buttery biscuit bases are super easy to make- you only need 3 ingredients:

• Digestive biscuits

A buttery biscuit base obviously requires some sort of biscuit and, here in the UK, the most traditional biscuit for this purpose is the digestive. Of course, you can use any biscuit you like- just remember that a) using biscuits with a cream filling will affect the moisture content in the biscuit base (you may want to reduce the butter slightly if you do this!) and b) S’mores are traditionally made with Graham Crackers, so you’ll want to use a biscuit as similar to that for the most authentic vibe. If you live in a country where Graham Crackers are readily available, go ahead and use them. Here in the UK, digestives are the most similar alternative.

• Unsalted butter

Melted butter binds the dry biscuit crumbs together, so you have a buttery biscuit base rather than a buttery biscuit rubble!

• Golden syrup

A slightly rogue addition, but golden syrup helps to bind the base together. I learnt this trick from Cupcake Jemma (what’s new?) and I find that it really does make a difference.

Making the buttery biscuit bases is a super quick process- only 4 steps!

• Finely crush the biscuits: I like to use a food processor for this, because it’s so quick and you can get a really fine crumb, super easily. If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a rolling pin to break up the biscuits- it will just take a little longer (and require a little more of an arm workout!). In the recipe below, the amount of biscuits listed is enough for the bases and some extra for decorating. You only need 135g of biscuit crumbs for 12 cupcake bases, so make sure to reserve the remaining 15g for decoration, or your biscuit bases will be too dry and might fall apart!

• Melt the butter: I like to do this in the microwave, but you can do it on the hob if you prefer.

• Mix everything together: Put the biscuit crumbs, butter and golden syrup into a bowl and mix well, until everything is combined. You should end up with a mixture that looks like damp sand and holds together if you press it with the back of a spoon.

• Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases: Line a 12-hole cupcake tray with cupcake cases and divide the biscuit mixture evenly between them (this works out as a little over 1 tbsp per case). Use the back of a teaspoon, or the end of a small rolling pin, to press down on the bases to compact them. Make sure the bases are as compressed as possible, as this will ensure they hold together after baking.

And that’s it! Your buttery biscuit bases are complete. At this point, you can set them aside while you prepare the cupcake batter.

Making the Chocolate Cupcakes

The next step is to make the chocolate cupcakes. I like to use the All-In-One Method for making cake batter because it is just SO easy, but you can use the more traditional-creaming method using the exact same ingredient quantities listed in the recipe, if you prefer. I have used both methods in previous posts here on the blog, so you can check those out if you would like a more in-depth explanation of either one:

• All-In-One Method
• Creaming Method

This chocolate cupcake recipe is super basic, but I have made a few modifications to my standard chocolate cake recipe, to really heighten the chocolate-y flavour:

• Additional cocoa powder: This recipe uses a cocoa powder:flour ratio of just over 1:3, which is pretty high! You still get a lovely, fluffy and well-risen cake, but it has a super chocolatey flavour.
• Salt: You only need a pinch of salt, but it really does enhance the chocolate flavour.
• Vanilla extract: My biggest pet peeve is when you buy a chocolate cake from a shop and it tastes more like vanilla than it does chocolate. WHY?! However, the pro bakers are (unsurprisingly) right when they tell you that vanilla actually enhances chocolate flavour- you just have to use it in moderation. A small splash is all you need for super chocolate-y, not vanilla-y, cupcakes.
• Hot coffee: Coffee is another ingredient that really enhances the flavour of chocolate. You only need a little coffee for these cakes, but it makes a world of difference. I like to use hot coffee because a) I’m too lazy to wait for it to cool and b) when I was younger I watched Nigella make a Devil’s Food Cake with boiling water on the Food Network and it changed my life. Using brewed coffee, rather than espresso powder/instant coffee granules will not only make sure your cake has a super smooth texture, it will also ensure you get the best flavour out of the coffee. You can either use coffee made from a coffee machine or you can make exactly the amount you need using boiling water and instant coffee granules. To do that, just add 1 tbsp of boiling water to 1/8 tsp instant coffee granules and stir to dissolve.

These adjustments are only small, but they make SUCH a difference. Truly, this is my go-to chocolate cake recipe now. It’s SO good.

As I said, today I’m using the All-In-One Method to make this batter. For this, you just need to put all of the batter ingredients (EXCEPT the coffee- more on that in a second!), making sure to sift all of the dry ingredients beforehand, into the bowl of a stand mixer (fitted with the whisk attachment) and mix on low speed to incorporate everything. The reason you want to leave out the coffee initially is that it is hot and you don’t want to risk cooking the eggs! Wait until the eggs have incorporated into the batter, then add the coffee, turn the mixer up to full speed and beat for about 30 seconds, until the batter is light and fluffy. You’ll need to scrape down the sides of the bowl, intermittently, throughout the whole process, just to make sure everything is fully incorporated.

Once your batter is ready, you can divide it between the cupcake cases, dolloping it right on top of the buttery biscuit bases you just made. You can use two spoons to divide up the batter, but I like to use a regular-sized ice cream scoop (about 2 1/2 inches in diameter). This allows me to divide up the batter super quickly, but also makes sure that all of the cupcakes are even- which is a win in my book! Your cupcake cases will be filled a little higher than normal- about 3/4 of the way up, but don’t worry! That’s just because of the biscuit base on the bottom.

Bake the cakes at 170°C for 25-30 minutes, until they spring back when touched gently. As always, I like to remove my cakes from the tin and transfer them to a wire rack as soon as they come out of the oven, to prevent the cases from becoming greasy. If you do this, just remember to be careful, because both the cupcakes and the tray will be very hot. Be particularly careful with these cupcakes, because the buttery biscuit bases will be a little fragile when the cakes are still warm. Try not to smack the tray down or place the cupcakes down too heavily!

Make sure to let the cupcakes cool completely before decorating them- this is always important, but particularly so for this recipe, because we will be topping them with ice cream!

Making the Marshmallow-y Meringue Icing

This icing is one of my most favourite things in the whole world. It tastes just like a marshmallow, it has the consistency of a fluffy meringue icing, it holds its shape perfectly (which is ideal for getting those pretty ridges that brown up so beautifully) and, surprise surprise, it’s another Cupcake Jemma recipe. Well, kind of. I’ve noticed some slight variations in ingredient quantities across the iterations of this recipe on Cupcake Jemma’s YouTube channel & various cookbooks and it was making me so CONFUSED! As a result, while the basic recipe concept is from Cupcake Jemma, I have adapted the quantities myself to achieve my ideal Marshmallow-y Meringue Icing recipe, that I can come back to whenever I need, without getting confused.

This meringue is kind of like a spin on the classic Swiss Meringue icing. The main difference is that, while with Swiss Meringue, you heat the egg whites and sugar over a double boiler, then remove it from the heat before whisking, with this recipe, you whisk it right over the heat. It requires a little bit more of an arm workout, but it also makes for such a fluffy icing. I’m a big fan. This recipe also includes cream of tartar and golden syrup- both of which help to stabilise the meringue and help it to hold its shape. I think there’s something in the US called ‘Seven-Minute Frosting’, which, from what I can tell, is very similar to this Marshmallow-y Meringue Icing. This variation just seems a little stiffer, which makes it perfect for these cupcakes.

This icing is deceptively simple to make, but it does, unfortunately, require a little bit of elbow grease, which is ironic because you use an electric hand whisk for the whole thing. However, you do end up whisking it for 6-8 minutes straight, in total, and take my word for it, you’ll be feeling it when the time is up. On the bright side, perhaps if we all make this icing enough we’ll finally be able to execute an adequate overhand throw! (Please, do not tell me if the overhand throw is just a struggle for me, I need solidarity right now). Anyway, I highly recommend setting a timer for the whisking stages, or you might be inclined to stop too early.

For the icing, you need the following ingredients:

• Egg whites

Serendipitously, this icing uses the exact number of egg whites as the number of yolks used in my Salted Caramel Ice Cream recipe. That means, if you’re clever about it, you can use the yolks for the ice cream, save the whites for the icing and use all the eggs up completely! This is a huge win for me, because leftover yolks/whites are the continual bane of my existence.

• Caster sugar

Yes, it’s a lot. No, I do not recommend eating this cupcakes if you are trying to cut down on your sugar intake.

• Golden syrup

I know that it sounds like a lot of golden syrup (150g), but, in reality, that works out at about 7 1/2 tbsps, which (I feel?) sounds much less horrifying.

• Cream of tartar

Please don’t be tempted to substitute baking powder/baking soda- not only would it not work, but it would be downright icky. Cream of Tartar helps to give the meringue icing structure and stability, which will help you get those clean ridges when you pipe it, which will really stand out when you torch the meringue.

• Fine sea salt

This icing is kind of salty, but in the best possible way? The salt counters the super-sweet vibe it has going on, making the whole thing much more balanced and infinitely tastier. Make sure to use fine salt, otherwise it might not dissolve fully in time and your icing won’t be silky smooth.

• Water

I’ve listed this in the recipe ingredients, against tradition, because I always seem to forget it if I don’t! You need the water to help everything combine and melt together easily.

• Vanilla extract

This is quite a lot of vanilla extract, but it’s really important for ensuring that this icing really tastes like marshmallow. Vanilla is the main flavour in store-bought marshmallows, so its important to get that flavour across in this homemade tribute to them.

To make the icing, you just need to put all of the ingredients (except the vanilla- vanilla has the best flavour when it has not been heated, so you want to leave it out at this point and add it after the icing comes off the heat) into a large, heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a pan that has about an inch of barely simmering water in the bottom and keep the whole thing over a low heat, so that the water stays barely simmering. While the bowl is over the heat, you need to be whisking constantly. Use an electric hand whisk on high speed.

After 5-7 minutes of whisking over the heat, your icing should be opaque, holding stiff peaks and all of the sugar should be dissolved. You can check to see if the sugar is dissolved by picking up a small amount of icing on your (clean, obviously) finger and rubbing it between your finger and thumb. If you can’t feel any sugar granules, you’re good to go! Take it off the heat and stop whisking as soon as the sugar has dissolved- while it would take a long time, you can over-whisk this icing. All meringue reaches a point where it stops getting stiffer and starts losing its shape instead- if this happens, you’ve over-whisked it and will need to start again :(. Don’t worry though, you’d have to whisk for about 15 minutes or so before that happens!

Also, no, I do not want to talk about how I know that/why I was whisking it for 15 minutes. I am still haunted by the experience.

With the icing off the heat, you can add the vanilla extract. Beat the whole thing for a further minute, to incorporate the vanilla, help the icing to cool down a little and make sure it holds it shape perfectly.

Once the icing is ready, transfer it to a piping bag, fitted with a large, open star tip, ready to decorate. You can use any piping tip you want, but I like to use this one, because the ridges lend themselves very well to being toasted!

Decorating the Cupcakes

Now comes the part where you need to be pretty speedy: assembling the cupcakes. Essentially, there are 4 steps involved in decorating these cupcakes:

• Add a scoop of salted caramel ice cream to the top of each cupcake:

I like to use a 1 1/2-inch diameter ice cream scoop for this. A regular-sized ice cream scoop would be too big, as you need space to pipe the icing around the base of the ice cream. If you don’t have a smaller scoop, you could use a dessert spoon to make a similarly sized ball. Make sure the ice cream ball is centred on top of the cupcake, or your icing will look askew!

• Pipe a swirl of Marshmallow-y Meringue Icing onto each cake, surrounding the ice cream scoop:

Holding the bag vertically, pipe a circle around the base of the scoop. When you come back to the beginning of the circle, keep applying pressure and raise the bag slightly as you move around, so that you are piping a continuous spiral, which fully encloses the ice cream. Keep going around in a spiral, gradually moving into the centre once you pass the top of the ice cream, until you reach the top, then stop applying pressure to finish off the spiral.

• Toast the marshmallow-y meringue icing:

There are a couple of different ways you can do this:

A) Use a blow torch: This will give you lots of control and will allow you to toast the sides evenly- I think it makes for the most attractive end result, but it does require you to actually own a blow torch.

B) Grill the cupcakes: This is a more accessible method, but you won’t be able to brown the sides of the icing- only the top. I recommend assembling your cupcakes on a baking tray, then putting the whole thing under a hot grill for about 2 minutes, until the meringue has browned in a few spots.

C) Bake the cupcakes: This is another more accessible method but, while it will brown the sides of the icing a little more, it won’t achieve the same toasty colour as the other methods- you’ll end up with a more uniform, but significantly paler meringue. Like the grilling method, I recommend assembling your cupcakes on a baking tray, then baking them in the oven at 230°C for 2-3 minutes, until the meringue is golden.

For the last two methods, make sure your oven/grill is fully up to temperature before you assemble your cakes, so that your ice cream does not melt before the cakes have a chance to go in the oven.

• Sprinkle the cupcakes with digestive crumbs:

Sprinkle the reserved digestive crumbs on top of the toasted cupcakes, making sure to work quickly. Serve immediately.

The common theme throughout all of these steps is to work quickly! While the meringue does act as an insulator to the ice cream, which will help to prevent it from melting quite as quickly as usual, there is only a small amount of ice cream on top, so it will still melt more quickly than your typical Baked Alaska. Don’t fret though, I have a few tips for making these ahead/minimising the last minute stress of assembling these cakes, which you can read about in the next section.

Notes on Making Ahead/Serving

I recognise that assembling and serving these cupcakes can seem like quite an intense process, because the ice cream is, frankly, a liability (sorry, ice cream, I still love you). Admittedly, I do not recommend attempting to serve these cakes to a large crowd, or at an event where it would not be possible to assemble things last minute. However you approach making these cakes, there will always be some last minute faffing about- alas, it is the nature of the Baked Alaska. However, I do have a few tips/recommendations for making the separate components ahead/making the process a little less last-minute heavy:

• The cakes (along with their buttery biscuit bases) can be made 2-3 days in advance- just keep them, undecorated, in an airtight container until you’re ready to serve. 
• Store the extra digestive crumbs in an airtight container until you’re ready to decorate.
• If you’re making your own ice cream from my recipe, you can make this up to 3 months in advance and keep it in the freezer until you’re ready to decorate the cupcakes. 
• You can pre-scoop the ice cream balls to save time during assembly. 1-3 days before you plan to assemble the cakes, scoop out 12 ice cream balls and place them on a lined baking tray. Put the whole tray into the freezer and leave it until you’re ready to assemble. When you come to decorate the cakes, just pop one of the pre-scooped balls onto each cupcake as normal. 
• The marshmallow-y meringue icing is best made fresh, but if you’re truly desperate you can make it in advance, cover it with cling film and store it in the fridge for up to 2 days. Give it a quick beat before using it, then decorate the cakes as normal.. You might notice a slight difference in the texture, but it will still taste delicious!

And those are my ‘Snow on the Beach’, Salted Caramel S’mores Baked Alaska Cupcakes. They are really, truly, honestly, DELICIOUS. If you make them, I’d love to hear about it! Let me know in the comments.

Gemma

xxx

Recipe

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Snow on the Beach Cupcakes

Salted Caramel S'mores Baked Alaska Cupcakes, inspired by the salty, sandy, snowy vibes of 'Snow on the Beach' by Taylor Swift

Course Dessert, Snack

Keyword Buttery biscuit base, Chocolate, Cupcake, Ice cream, Marshmallowy meringue icing, Salted caramel, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift Cupcakes

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Servings 12 cupcakes

Equipment

• 2 1/2-inch diameter ice cream scoop (optional)
• 1 1/2-inch diameter ice cream scoop
• Blow torch (optional)
• Electric hand whisk
• 1 Piping bag, fitted with a large, open star tip.

Ingredients

For the Digestive Base:

• 150 g digestive biscuits (about 10 standard digestives) (see Note 1).
• 45 g unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tbsp golden syrup

For the Chocolate Cupcakes:

• 150 g caster sugar
• 110 g self-raising flour
• 40 g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 150 g Stork (see Note 2).
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp brewed coffee (see Note 3).
• 1 splash vanilla

For the Marshmallow Icing:

• 3 egg whites
• 255 g caster sugar
• 150 g golden syrup
• 3/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/8 tsp fine sea salt
• 3 tbsp water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

To finish:

• Salted caramel ice cream (see Note 4).

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a 12-hole cupcake tray with dark brown cupcake cases and set aside.

Make the buttery biscuit bases:

• Use a food processor to grind the digestive biscuits into a fine, sand-like texture (you could also use a rolling pin to bash the biscuits, but make sure they are finely ground). Remove 15g of the ground biscuits and set aside for decoration later. Tip the remaining biscuit crumbs into a bowl, along with the butter and golden syrup. Mix well, until all of the ingredients are well incorporated. The mixture should look like slightly damp sand, and hold together if you compress it with the back of a spoon.
• Divide the biscuit mixture between the 12 cupcake cases (a little over 1 tbsp per case). Use a teaspoon/the end of a small rolling pin to compact the biscuit base as much as possible. Set the tray aside while you make the cake batter.

Make the chocolate cupcake batter:

• Sift the caster sugar, self-raising flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the Stork (or softened, unsalted butter, if you are using that), the eggs and the vanilla extract, then, using the whisk attachment, beat on medium/low speed until the ingredients are just incorporated.
• Add the hot coffee, then beat on full speed until the mixture is light and fluffy- about 30 seconds.
• Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 cupcake cases (I like to use a regular-sized ice cream scoop for this), then bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the cupcakes spring back when touched gently.
• When the cupcakes are baked, carefully remove them from the tin and transfer to a wire rack as soon as they come out of the oven. This will prevent the cupcake cases from becoming greasy. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

Make the marshmallow-y meringue icing:

• Place of all the ingredients for the icing, except the vanilla extract, into a large, heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water and, using an electric hand whisk, beat on high speed for 5-7 minutes, or until the mixture reaches stiff peaks and all of the sugar has dissolved- you should be able to rub the mixture between your thumb and index finger and not feel any grains of sugar.
• Turn off the heat and remove the bowl from the pan. Add the vanilla extract, then beat on high speed for a further minute off the heat.
• Transfer the icing to a piping bag, fitted with a large, open star tip and set aside while you get everything ready to decorate the cupcakes.

Decorate the cupcakes:

• If you plan to grill the cupcakes instead of blowtorching them, turn the grill on now, to give it time to heat up. If you would prefer to bake the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 230°C. Do not start assembling your cupcakes until the oven has come to temperature (if you plan to use a blowtorch to brown the meringue, skip this step). If you plan to use the oven to brown the meringue, I recommend assembling your cupcakes on a baking tray, so that you do not have to transfer them all in and out of the oven individually.
• Working quickly, place a small scoop of ice cream on top of each cupcake, making sure it is centred. Immediately pipe a swirl of Marshmallow-y Meringue Icing around the ice cream scoop, making sure it is completely covered.
• At this point, either carefully blow torch the meringue (try to evenly brown all of the sides!), or transfer them to the preheated oven/grill for 2-3 minutes, until the meringue is slightly toasted. Sprinkle with the reserved digestive crumbs, then serve immediately, before the ice cream melts!

Notes

1. I live in the UK, so I use digestives for my S’mores-inspired baked goods. If you live in a country where Graham Crackers (the more traditional biscuit used for S’mores) are readily available, feel free to use them instead, You only need 135g of biscuits for the buttery biscuit base, but I like to save some digestive crumbs to decorate the finished cupcakes with. I only used a little, so 1 extra digestive was fine for me, but if you want more digestive decoration, feel free to add more! Just make sure that you use 135g of digestives for the base, or the ratios will be off and your base may not hold together right. 
2. As always, I like to use Stork in place of butter when I make cakes, because I think it gives them a fluffier, moister crumb. If you would prefer to use butter, you can use an equal amount of softened, unsalted butter in place of the Stork.
3. You can either use coffee straight from a coffee machine, or you can make exactly 1 tbsp using instant coffee granules: place 1/8 tsp instant coffee granules into a small bowl, then add 1 tbsp of boiling water and stir to dissolve. 
4. 1x batch of my Salted Caramel Ice Cream makes just a little more than you need for this recipe, but you can also buy any salted caramel ice cream from a store, if you prefer. You only need 1x small scoop per cupcake (about 1.5 tbsp), so you don’t need too much- an average pint will be plenty. 

Table of Contents

• The Anti-Hero Cupcake: Explained
• Earl Grey-Infused Milk
• Making the Earl Grey Cupcakes
• Making the Earl Grey Buttercream
• Making the Chocolate Fedoras
• Decorating the Cupcakes
• Recipe

The Anti-Hero Cupcake: Explained

The Anti-Hero cupcake is made up of 3 main elements:

• Earl Grey cupcake
• Earl Grey buttercream
• Chocolate ghost decorations

I really embraced the ‘at tea-time, everybody agrees‘ lyric from the song’s chorus. This cake is tea. I went for Earl Grey, because I really love the flavour, but you could use a more classic breakfast tea, if you prefer. To get all that delicious tea flavour into both the cake and the buttercream, I used some homemade infused milk.

The chocolate decorations are what really elevate these cupcakes from tea to tea time. Anti-Hero is one of the 3 songs from Midnights that has a music video (along with Lavender Haze and Bejeweled), so I had plenty of extra inspiration for the decorating these cupcakes! In the video, there are a bunch of ‘ghosts’ (read: people wearing sheets, sunglasses and funky hats), which have become pretty iconic. I knew, almost immediately, that I wanted to decorate my cupcakes to look like the ghosts, because a) they’re so CUTE and b) they’re so iconically Anti-Hero. I singled my decorations down to a single ghost, my favourite ghost: Fedora Ghost:

To make Fedora Ghost, I use a combination of white modelling chocolate, dark chocolate chips, Rolos and giant chocolate buttons. Basically, chocolate 4 ways. What’s not to love? Ultimately, these Anti-Hero cupcakes end up as a delicious tea time treat, vaguely reminiscent of a classic Fondant Fancy, amped up with the flavours of tea and chocolate!

So, those are the basics of the Anti-Hero cupcake. Now, let’s get into some specifics.

Earl Grey-Infused Milk

To get the Earl Grey flavour into both the cupcake batter and the buttercream, we need to make some infused milk. Luckily, it’s super easy to do! All you have to do is put the milk and tea bags into a small saucepan, bring the whole thing to a simmer, then turn off the heat, cover it and allow the milk to infuse as it cools down to room temperature- about 30 minutes. Once it’s cool, you can remove the tea bags (make sure to squeeze them to get every last drop of flavour!) and discard them, leaving you with Earl Grey-infused milk. So easy, right?

Earl Grey has quite a subtle flavour, so I’ve tried to really amp up the flavour in the batter/buttercream by using 4 tea bags for 100ml of milk. It might seem like a lot, but you need to get a really concentrated flavour in the milk, because adding too much liquid to either the batter OR the buttercream can cause them to split (more on that later). I found that this ratio of tea:milk makes for the perfect hit of Earl Grey in the finished cupcakes, without any of the bitterness that you can get from over-brewing the tea bags.

Making the Earl Grey Cupcakes

Once you’ve got your infused milk, you can move on to making the cupcake batter. For this, I used my All-In-One Method (I recently made a post where I described this process in depth- you can check it out here if you want to learn more). Essentially, you just put all the ingredients, making sure to sift the dry ingredients beforehand, into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, and whisk until it’s smooth, light and airy. SO easy! To flavour this batter, I used 3 tbsp of the Earl Grey-infused milk. I also added a few drops of vanilla extract, just to bring out the flavours in the tea even more.

As always, I like to divide my cake batter into the cupcake cases using a standard-sized ice cream scoop- I find this is the perfect size and makes scooping the cupcakes so much quicker! For these cupcakes, I opted to use dark brown cupcake cases, to match the fedoras on my ghosts. I used these ones, but they’re slightly smaller than my normal cupcake cases and not overly thick, so I’m still on the lookout for the perfect dark brown cases!

Once your cupcakes are all scooped, you just need to bake them at 170°C for 25-30 minutes, until they have risen and the tops spring back when touched lightly. This is a slightly lower baking temperature than most cupcake recipes suggest! I found that, at higher temperatures, my cupcakes were coming out with super peaked tops, almost like volcanoes- a sure sign that the oven temperature is too high! Baking the cupcakes at a lower temperature ensures they rise into perfect, even domes, making them a) prettier and b) easier to pipe onto!

I like to transfer the baked cupcakes to a wire rack as soon as they come out of the oven. The reason for this is that, if left in the baking tin as they cool, the bottom of the cupcake cases can become greasy. By taking them out of the tin immediately, you can prevent this. Do be careful though, because the cakes (and the tin!) will be very hot. Once you’ve transferred them, make sure to let the cakes cool completely before you decorate them, or the buttercream will melt.

Making the Earl Grey Buttercream

For these cupcakes, I opted to make a typical American buttercream, flavoured with the same Earl Grey-infused milk as the cake batter. American buttercream is one of the easiest icings to make, but I do have a few tips and tricks to make the process even more straightforward and produce an even more delicious buttercream.

Quick note here: when I was making my buttercream for these cakes, disaster struck! My icing… split! Only slightly and, strangely enough, it split after I’d piped it onto my cakes, by which point I was tired and decided to just go with it, knowing it would be covered up later anyway. Ah well, these things happen! It was a combination of me baking these cupcakes in a warm, humid kitchen & getting cocky and adding too much infused milk. I’ve tinkered with the recipe a little to make sure this won’t happen to you if you use this recipe, so don’t worry!

This buttercream recipe only uses 4 ingredients. To make it, you will need:

• Softened unsalted butter

When you’re making buttercream, the butter absolutely has to be softened (i.e. at room temperature). You should be able to press your finger into the butter and make an indent in it easily, but it shouldn’t be melty or liquid. Soft butter will ensure that your ingredients can incorporate fully into a smooth, creamy buttercream.

• Icing sugar

I know that sometimes sifting can feel like a super mundane job. Unfortunately, when you’re making buttercream, it’s wholly necessary. Not sifting your icing sugar can leave you with a lumpy buttercream, which is just… not the vibe. Take it from me: sift your icing sugar!

• Earl Grey-infused milk

The amount of infused milk this recipe makes is enough for both the batter and the icing. Adding the infused milk to the buttercream will get loads of delicious tea flavour into the icing, without compromising the smooth texture. Just make sure not to add too much, or else your buttercream may split (again, speaking from experience…).

• Salt

Listen, I’ve never fully got on board the whole ‘salt in baked goods’ train. I just… don’t think it makes much of a difference? However, there are some baked goods for which I will wholeheartedly embrace the addition of salt- salted caramel being the obvious choice (side note: I recently posted a recipe for salted caramel ice cream, so definitely check that out if salted caramel is your thing!). This icing, randomly, weirdly, unexpectedly, needs salt. I’m not talking loads of salt- just a little pinch. At last, I have found an instance where I can understand the famous bakers’ and chefs’ claims that ‘salt brings out the flavour of the other ingredients’, because, in this recipe, it really does. Go figure.

The best American buttercream is whipped a lot. The more you whip it, the fluffier it gets. The fluffier it gets, the less cloyingly sweet and stodgy it is. Therefore, be patient and whip the icing- you will be so glad you did! I like to start by whipping the butter, on its own, for about 2 minutes, until it’s super pale and fluffy. Then, I add half of the icing sugar, incorporate it by hand (to prevent an icing sugar cloud) and then whip it for another minute. I add the infused milk and whip again for a further minute. Finally, I add the remaining icing sugar, incorporate it by hand, then whip the whole thing for a final minute. You can do this with an electric hand whisk or a stand mixer (fitted with the paddle attachment), but I don’t recommend doing it by hand. It’s possible, yes, but only at great cost to your arm muscles. Save your arms and go electric- you’ll thank me later.

Making the Chocolate Fedoras

I said we were creating Fedora Ghost, so, obviously, we have to make some fedoras. Luckily, they’re super easy to make! You only need two ingredients, Rolos and giant chocolate buttons (I used Cadbury), as well as a small frying pan. That’s it!

Side note here: is there some Rolo-related stockist drama I don’t know about? I’ve been having real trouble finding them lately, particularly in the bigger supermarkets. The ones I used here were purchased from a corner shop, so, if you’re struggling to find Rolos too, maybe try your nearest one of those!

Anyway, if you have managed to obtain the Rolos, you can get started on making the fedoras. You’ll need 1x Rolo and 1x giant chocolate button per fedora, so 12 of each if you’re making a single batch of this recipe (the standard-sized Rolo tubes that I purchased each had 12 Rolos in, so 1 tube should be perfect. Having said that, sometimes the caramel can ooze out of Rolos, making them a little messy, so if you want perfect fedoras, it might be worth buying an extra pack to give yourself more options- you can always eat the leftovers!).

Begin by warming the frying pan over medium heat. When it’s hot, turn off the heat and use the residual heat of the pan to melt the base of a Rolo. You don’t need to melt it a lot, just enough that you can stick the Rolo to the chocolate button. To get a similar shape to the hat in the music video, I opted to stick the Rolo to the flat side of the chocolate button (so that the domed side was facing down). Repeat this process for each hat, making one for each cupcake, then set your fedoras aside for the chocolate to harden while you get on with the other decorations.

Decorating the Cupcakes

First up, you’ll need to pipe the buttercream onto the cupcakes. For this, you’ll need a piping bag fitted with a large, round piping tip (I used a #1A tip). Put the buttercream into the bag, then hold the bag vertically, so that the tip is centred above the surface of the cupcake. Apply a gentle pressure, lifting the bag as you go, to create a tall ‘dollop’ of icing in the centre of the cake- the aim is to bring the icing upwards, not outwards (i.e. the surface of the cake won’t be covered, just the very centre), like in the photo below:

Once you have iced your cupcakes, you need to chill them in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will firm up the buttercream, making the next stage much easier.

One quick note here: modelling chocolate, much like fondant, is hygroscopic, meaning it will absorb moisture from its surroundings. I recommend decorating these cupcakes the same day that you plan to serve them, otherwise you run the risk of your modelling chocolate ‘sweating’. This doesn’t affect the overall flavour, but will affect the texture/appearance of your cupcakes.

When you’re ready to decorate your cupcakes and the buttercream has chilled, you can start creating the modelling chocolate ‘sheets’ for your ghosts. Do this just before you want to put them on the cakes, or the modelling chocolate might dry out before you have a chance to drape it over the icing. Knead the modelling chocolate into a smooth ball, then break off a piece- about 15g. Shape it into a ball and dust your work surface with icing sugar, then use a small rolling pin (dusted with more icing sugar!) to roll it out very thinly, trying to maintain a roughly circular shape, until it’s about 12cm in diameter. If the edges are looking a bit ragged, use a small, sharp knife to cut a neater, wavy edge all around, keeping that rough, circular shape. After that, you can carefully lift up the chocolate sheet and drape it over your cupcake. Use your hands to press the chocolate around the buttercream below, allowing it to fold organically. Repeat this process for each cupcake.

Once you have all of your cupcakes covered in their modelling chocolate ‘sheets’, you can add the eyes. For this, I used 2x dark chocolate chips per cake (one for each eye). You want to press the chips into the modelling chocolate, so that they sit about half of the way down the buttercream dollop. Push them in pointy side first- not only will this look neater, but the point of the tip will pierce the modelling chocolate and help to secure the chips.

Side note: if these weren’t Taylor Swift-inspired cupcakes, I would have been tempted to leave them at this stage: they’re SO CUTE! I think these cupcakes would be perfect, left at this stage, for a fun Halloween treat.

Nevertheless, these are Taylor Swift cupcakes, so we have to turn these spooky eyes into super cool sunglasses. I used this black edible marker to draw in a bar between the two chips, but I wasn’t crazy about the result. It was quite finicky to do and doesn’t look super neat. If I were to make these again, I would probably melt a tiny bit of dark chocolate and use a cocktail stick/skewer (maybe even a piping bag with a very fine tip?) dipped into it to etch the little line across. I think that would be neater and ultimately easier, even if it requires a couple of extra steps.

The final step was to attach the chocolate fedoras that I made earlier. Modelling chocolate isn’t overly sticky, so you can’t just stick the fedora on top or it would fall off! Instead, I used the same frying pan-method that I used to make the fedoras. After I heated up the pan, I used it to melt the base of each hat (i.e. the domed part of the giant chocolate button), very slightly, then used that melted layer to stick the hat to the top of the modelling chocolate ‘sheet’. It worked really well, but do be careful not to melt the button too much, or it might ooze out as you press the hat down, making your cupcakes a little untidy!

With that, the Anti-Hero cupcakes are finished! I have to be honest, these cupcakes kind of give me more… Mafia vibes (??) than Anti-Hero, BUT they are still super cute. Also, the tea flavour is very much Anti-Hero and not at all Mafia, so I’m still counting this one as a win. I hope you’ve enjoyed my tutorial for these Anti-Hero cupcakes- let me know if you try them out!

Gemma

xxx

Recipe

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Anti-Hero Cupcakes

These cute cupcakes, inspired by the music video for Taylor Swift's hit song Anti-Hero, are flavoured with Earl Grey and reminiscent of classic Fondant Fancies, making them a perfect treat for tea time (everybody agrees!).

Course Dessert, Snack

Keyword Chocolate, Cupcake, Earl Grey, Halloween, Infused milk, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift Cupcakes, Tea

Prep Time 2 hours hours

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 2 hours hours 25 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Equipment

• 1 piping bag
• 1 large round piping nozzle (I used a #1A tip).
• small rolling pin

Ingredients

For the infused milk:

• 100 ml milk
• 4 Earl Grey tea bags (see Note 1).

For the Earl Grey cupcakes:

• 150 g caster sugar
• 150 g Stork (see Note 2).
• 3 eggs
• 150 g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 3 tbsp infused milk
• 3 drops vanilla extract

For the Earl Grey buttercream:

• 100 g unsalted butter, softened
• 220 g icing sugar, sifted
• 2.5 tbsp infused milk
• 1 pinch salt

To decorate:

• 12 giant chocolate buttons (I used Cadbury)
• 12 Rolos
• 24 (about 7-8g) dark chocolate chips
• Black edible ink marker (see Note 3).
• 180 g white modelling chocolate (see Note 4).
• Icing sugar, for dusting.

Instructions

Make the infused milk:

• Put the milk and tea bags into a small saucepan. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat and cover, then leave to cool down to room temperature- about 30 minutes. When the milk has cooled, remove the tea bags, squeezing out any excess milk for extra flavour, and discard.

Make the Earl Grey cupcakes:

• Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a 12-hole cupcake tray with dark brown cupcake cases and set aside.
• Place all of the cupcake ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix on low speed until most of the flour is incorporated, then gradually increase the speed to high. Beat until light and fluffy- about 30 seconds.
• Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and ensure everything is fully combined. Use a regular-sized ice cream scoop to divide the batter between the 12 cupcake cases, then bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the cupcakes spring back when touched gently.
• When the cupcakes are baked, remove them from the oven and transfer immediately to a wire rack, to prevent the bottom of the cases from becoming greasy. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

Make the Earl Grey buttercream:

• Place the softened butter into a medium-sized bowl. Using an electric whisk, whip on high speed until the butter is pale and fluffy.
• Add half of the icing sugar to the whipped butter. Use a spatula to incorporate the sugar (this will prevent an icing sugar cloud), then beat with the electric whisk, on high speed, for a further minute.
• Add the infused milk, then beat for another minute. Add the remaining icing sugar, stir in with a spatula, then beat the whole thing for a final minute. Transfer the icing to a piping bag, fitted with a large, round tip, ready to decorate the cupcakes.

To decorate:

• Pipe the buttercream onto each cupcake- you are aiming for a tall-ish cone in the centre of the cupcake. To achieve this, hold the piping bag vertically in the centre of the cake, then apply gentle pressure, lifting as you go to add height. Place the iced cakes into the fridge for about 15 minutes, to allow the buttercream to firm up, while you make the other decorations.
• To make the chocolate fedoras, warm a small frying pan over medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot, turn off the heat. Use the heat from the pan to melt the base of a Rolo (be careful of your fingers near the hot pan!). When the base has melted a little, stick the Rolo to the flat side of a giant chocolate button, making sure it is centred. Repeat 11 more times, for a total of 12 chocolate fedoras, then set all the chocolates aside to harden.
• When the buttercream on the cakes is firm, you can start making the 'sheets' for the ghosts. Knead your modelling chocolate to bring it back to a smooth, pliant dough, then break off a small piece (about 15g). Dust your work surface and rolling pin with icing sugar, then roll out the ball, keeping the chocolate in a roughly circular shape, very thinly (about 12cm diameter). Use a small, sharp knife to cut off any messy edges with a wavy line, then carefully lift up the chocolate and drape it over the chilled cupcake. Press it against the central buttercream dollop and arrange the folds evenly.
• Before the modelling chocolate firms up, press two dark chocolate chips into the chocolate, to act as eyes. Using the black edible marker, draw a bar connecting the two chips to create the sunglasses (see Note 3).
• Heat the same, small frying pan you used to make the fedoras back up over a medium heat. Once the pan is hot, turn off the heat and use the warmth of the pan to melt the bottom of each fedora slightly (this will allow them to stick to the top of the modelling chocolate). Press one fedora on top of each ghost cupcake. Be careful not to over-melt the chocolate, or it will ooze out when you push it down onto the cupcake.
• I recommend adding the chocolate decorations (from the modelling chocolate 'sheets' onwards) on the day you plan to serve the cakes, to prevent any 'sweating'. The iced cupcakes will keep for 2-3 days in an airtight container (or the fridge), while the fully decorated cupcakes are best eaten on the same day.

Notes

1. I like to use decaf tea when I’m baking with it, so that I can have a cake at any time of the day without worrying, but feel free to use caffeinated tea, if you prefer.
2. As always, I like to use Stork in place of butter for my cakes- I think it makes for a fluffier, moister cake. If you don’t want to use Stork, just substitute it with an equal quantity of softened, unsalted butter. 
3. I used an edible ink marker to join the two chocolate chip ‘eyes’ into sunglasses, but it was a little bit finicky and I wasn’t super happy with the result. If you want to use an edible marker, I recommend you press the chips in, then remove them and draw the bar between them, before pressing the chips back in, to make the process easier. Otherwise, you could use some melted dark chocolate, either by placing it into a piping bag fitted with a very fine tip OR by dipping a cocktail stick into it and etching a small line that way. 
4. As always, you can use any edible modelling paste for this. I’ve opted to use white modelling chocolate, because I like the taste and the colour, but you could also use fondant or marzipan, if you prefer. All of these modelling pastes will ‘sweat’ if left on the cakes for too long though, so I would still only add them to the cupcakes on the day you plan to serve them, no matter which paste you choose to use.

Table of Contents

• The Maroon Cupcake: Explained
• Food Colouring 101
• Making the Cupcakes
• Making Pipeable Cream Cheese Icing
• Piping Buttercream Flowers
• Recipe

The Maroon Cupcake: Explained

The Maroon Cupcake is composed of 2 main elements:

• Burgundy velvet cake
• Cream cheese icing, piped into a two-toned carnation/rose hybrid flower

Taste-wise, these cupcakes are essentially just red velvet cakes: tangy vanilla cupcakes with a hint of chocolate flavour, topped with a rich cream cheese icing. The only real difference in the batter, which takes the cakes from red to burgundy velvet, is the cocoa powder.

Black cocoa powder is the secret ingredient for these cupcakes. In the cocoa powder world, there is a process known as ‘Dutching’ (you might see some cocoa powders called ‘Dutch-Processed’). ‘Dutching’ is where the cocoa is treated with an alkaline solution, which neutralises some of the acidity, giving it a smoother flavour and darker colour. Black cocoa powder is cocoa that has been ultra-Dutched, making it super dark and super smooth. It’s not necessarily more chocolate-y, but it is definitely intense and pungent- as if you’ve extracted the underlying notes in a bar of dark chocolate. The ‘Dutching’ process actually prevents the cocoa from being too bitter, so you don’t need to worry about that. Long story short, black cocoa powder is still chocolate-y, just in a slightly more grown-up way than regular cocoa powder. It’s mainly used for the dark colour it imparts. I use it in this recipe, in place of regular cocoa powder, so that, when I add red food colouring, I end up with a deep, burgundy/maroon batter, instead of the vivid red typically achieved in a red velvet cake.

Black cocoa powder can be a little hard to find- I purchased a 100g pot from Purple Cupcakes, a baking supply store here in the UK. You can find the link here. If you can’t find black cocoa powder near you, or just don’t want to use it, you’ll need to use a combination of black and red food colouring to achieve the burgundy colour (but be warned, you’ll need a lot of colouring to achieve the same colour, which might affect the overall taste of your finished bakes!). You could also try substituting some of the flour for a little more cocoa powder, to impart a deeper brown colour, but this will also affect the overall flavour of the cake!

The decoration for these cupcakes is inspired by what might just be my favourite line in the song: ‘Carnations you had thought were roses, that’s us.’ I mean…. Miss Swift, PLEASE. Anyway, I had a vision for these cupcakes: they would be decorated to look like an ambiguous flower, that could be a carnation or a rose, in a nod to that line. It took a bit of practising, but, with the right tools, piping the buttercream flowers on top of the cupcakes ended up being pretty straightforward. To really draw out that ambiguous carnation/rose vibe, while still fitting in with the colour scheme defined by the title of the song, I opted to create white, rose-shaped petals that were edged with burgundy/maroon- like an iconic carnation (I think it’s called a Cream Viana carnation? Don’t quote me on that though!).

The classic topping for a red velvet cake is cream cheese icing- the tanginess of the cream cheese really draws out the tangy flavour of the cake. I wanted to continue that tradition with my burgundy velvet cakes, so I opted to use a standard cream cheese icing to decorate. The only slight problem with using cream cheese icing is that it can be a little runnier than your typical American buttercream- not ideal when you’re piping intricate details like these flowers! Luckily, I’ve done some testing and found a way to get delicious, perfectly pipeable cream cheese icing. More on that later.

Finally, as always, I like to match my cupcake cases to my cupcakes. When I was purchasing the black cocoa powder, I noticed that Purple Cupcakes had some burgundy cupcake cases too, so, obviously, I bought them. Having tried them out with this recipe, I can tell you that I was really impressed! They’re thick and sturdy, with an even, deep burgundy colour on the outside and plain white on the inside. I will definitely be purchasing more cases in different colours from this shop.

Essentially, then, this is a recipe for burgundy velvet cupcakes. Even if you aren’t a Taylor Swift fan, or don’t want to bother with the piping on top, you should definitely try out the cakes and just spread some cream cheese icing on top! They’ll still look (and taste!) great! Anyway, let’s get into some specifics…

Food Colouring 101

It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone making a red velvet cake for the first time will read the recipe, do a double take and exclaim to themselves: ‘How much?!’ when they see the quantity of red food colouring. It is a lot, yes, but it is the price we pay to honour the tradition of the cake and eat unnaturally red food. You can put less food colouring in (or skip the food colouring altogether, if you want), but your finished cakes will not be Maroon, like the title of the song, which does kind of defeat the point.

If you are willing to use food colouring in your bake, know that not all food colourings are made equal. I talked about this in my Lavender Haze Cupcake post, so you can check out the nitty-gritty of the discussion there, but try to find a food colouring that a) has been specifically formulated for use in high-fat content mixtures and b) won’t be affected by the heat of the oven. I recently discovered Colour Mill colourings and I have been really impressed with my experience of them so far. For this recipe, I used the shade Red. When combined with the black cocoa powder, the red colouring lends a deep, burgundy/maroon hue to the batter, which further deepens during baking.

Making the Cupcakes

My go-to red velvet cupcake recipe is a slightly adapted version of Cupcake Jemma‘s. It gives that classic, tangy, vanilla/chocolate flavour, but isn’t so heavily flavoured that it tastes like it came straight out of a supermarket. It’s also pretty quick and easy to whip up, which is great!

I like to get everything prepared before I start, because, once you start mixing, these cupcakes come together super quickly. Another quick tip here: this recipe (and all of the red food colouring involved) can get pretty messy if you’re not careful. Food colouring washes off eventually, but, just to be safe, opt for bakeware that won’t stain too easily (i.e. keep that white spatula far, far away).

First up, you want to line a 12-hole cupcake tray with your burgundy cupcake cases and preheat the oven to 180°C. Cupcake Jemma’s recipes always use a fan-assisted oven, but I prefer to use a conventional oven where I can, so I have adapted the recipe accordingly. With this recipe, I actually felt the cakes baked in the conventional oven were moister! Win.

Start by mixing the buttermilk, vanilla and red food colouring together in a small jug. Whisk it up until the colour is distributed evenly, then set aside. It will be vivid, but it needs to be that way! The colour will tone down a lot when you add the buttermilk to the rest of the batter.

Sift the flour, black cocoa powder, sugar and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the butter (as always with my cakes, I prefer to use Stork because I think it gives a fluffier, moister cake, but you can use softened, unsalted butter if you prefer) and eggs.

Using the paddle attachment, beat those ingredients together on medium-high speed for about 1 minute. I like to start on a slow speed, just to incorporate the flour, then work up to medium-high- that way, I’m not ambushed by a cloud of flour! When it’s ready, the mixture should be smooth, fluffy and an even, grey shade (from the cocoa powder), just like above.

At this point, you’ll want to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is well-mixed, then add the red buttermilk mixture. Beat the mixture on medium-high for a further 30 seconds, or until the red colour has been distributed evenly. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again, so you don’t end up with any pesky streaks of unincorporated colour later on.

From now on, you have to work quickly (like, not-enough-time-to-take-a-photo quickly). In a small cup, mix together the baking soda and the vinegar. It should fizz up immediately (if it doesn’t, check that your baking soda is in date- this batter relies heavily on the reaction between these ingredients to rise, so it’s important that the reaction occurs properly!). Working fast, tip the whole lot into the cake batter and give it a brief mix, just to incorporate everything.

Divide the batter between the 12 cupcake cases (each case should be about 3/4 full), then place into the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the cakes spring back when touched gently.

I find it’s best to remove the cupcakes from the tray and transfer them to a wire rack to cool as soon as they come out of the oven- this helps to prevent the bottom of the cases from becoming greasy. Obviously, the tray and the cakes will be super hot, so be very careful while doing this.

Making Pipeable Cream Cheese Icing

As I mentioned, cream cheese icing can be a little softer than American buttercream. Because we’ll be using it to pipe flowers on top of our burgundy velvet cupcakes, it’s really important that the icing is firm enough to hold its shape. There are 2 main rules you’ll need to follow in order to get perfectly pipeable cream cheese icing, every time:

1. Use full-fat cream cheese.

It can be tempting to use low-fat cream cheese, but it just won’t work for this recipe- you need the fat to keep the icing firm! Low-fat cream cheese has a looser consistency that just can’t be remedied by adding extra icing sugar (trust me, I’ve tried).

US recipes will tell you to use block cream cheese (from what I can tell, this is basically cream cheese that comes in a block, wrapped in foil/paper, much like butter), and avoid the spreadable stuff at all costs. Here in the UK, block cream cheese is rare- I’ve only ever seen/used the stuff that comes in a tub. Don’t worry- as long as it’s full fat, you’ll be fine!

2. Don’t overmix the cream cheese.

When I make American buttercream, I tend to whip the whole thing for a loooonnnng time to get it really light and fluffy, while helping to prevent it ending up like that cloyingly-sweet, super stiff/thick icing that you can get on some store-bought cakes. However, cream cheese does not like to be whipped to that extent. Over-whipping cream cheese can leave you with a soupy mess- not the vibe. I have specifically formulated the instructions for this recipe to minimise the amount of mixing the cream cheese undergoes, which will leave you with perfectly stiff, yet still soft and fluffy, cream cheese icing- ideal for the piping on these cupcakes.

You want to start with softened butter. You can leave it out at room temperature for a couple of hours, or, if you’re lazy like me, you can pop it in the microwave, on the lowest setting, for about 15-20 seconds. It should be soft enough that you can easily make an indent in it with your finger, but not melted. Once you have your softened butter, you want to whip it until it is completely smooth and noticeably paler. This will take about 1-2 minutes- I like to use an electric hand mixer. Make sure there are no lumps of butter remaining, otherwise your icing won’t be super smooth.

At this point, you can add the cream cheese. I like to mix the cream cheese into the butter by hand, to ensure I don’t overmix it, but you can use an electric mixer if you prefer- just be sure to only mix it until combined- as little time as possible! You’re looking to get the two fats completely incorporated, but that’s it.

Next, you need to add the icing sugar. I prefer to add all of the icing sugar in one and mix it in by hand (to prevent an icing sugar dust cloud!), before giving the whole thing a brief, final mix (literally only 10-15 seconds!) with the electric mixer, just to make sure it’s super smooth and fluffy. If you’re making a big quantity of icing, you might want to add the icing sugar in two stages.

And there you have it! Thick and smooth cream cheese icing, perfect for piping.

Piping Buttercream Flowers

I admit, piping buttercream flowers looks scary. Be encouraged, though, by the fact that, before this week, I had never piped a buttercream flower, and I think these look pretty OK! Truthfully, it’s all in the equipment. For these flowers, you’ll need a #124 tip: this is a large petal tip, with one end slightly thinner than the other. As we just covered, you’ll also want quite stiff icing, so that it holds its shape when piped and maintains the definition of the petals. Finally, while you can use your hand to hold and turn the cupcake as you pipe, I find it easier to place the cupcake on a turntable/Lazy Susan instead, which can do all the spinning for you and leave you free to concentrate on the piping. If you do use a turntable, you’ll want to place the cupcake on a non-stick mat, to prevent it from slipping and sliding as you spin it!

By nature, buttercream flowers take quite a lot of buttercream, which is why this recipe calls for so. Much. Icing. Sorry! If you don’t want to make/use/consume quite so much, you can just pipe smaller flowers on top, rather than covering the whole surface of each cupcake. Having said that, I have a pretty low tolerance when it comes to eating cakes with lots of icing, but I don’t think these cakes have too much icing at all, so make of that what you will!

The two-tone petals are completely optional, I just wanted to a) incorporate more maroon into my Maroon cupcakes and b) really blur the line between carnation and rose. Those darker-tipped petals are very reminiscent of a carnation, but the piping technique for a rose is much easier! In fact, if you’re a bit shaky like me, your rose can end up a bit frilly and carnation-looking anyway, which works out because you can get roses with darker-tipped petals. Overall, I like to think of these flowers as ‘carnoses’ (or ‘rosations’? Unsure).

If you do want to make these two-toned petals, you’ll need to take a heaped teaspoon of your cream cheese icing and place it into a small bowl. To make it that burgundy colour, much like the cake batter, you’ll need to add some black cocoa powder and red food colouring, then mix it well to combine. It will get a lot thinner, as a result of all the extra mixing, but that doesn’t matter for this recipe.

Then, you need to fit your piping bag with the #124 tip. Line it up so each end of the thin tip lines up with one of the side seams of the bag.

If you want to make two-toned petals, you’ll need to add the burgundy icing at this stage. Use a skewer (or other thin implement) to carefully smear the coloured icing all the way down the seam of the piping bag, on the same side as the thinner end of the tip. The thicker this stripe of colour is, the more pigment you will get on each petal. I did a much thicker stripe of colour for the cupcake at the back of the above photo and, as you can see, it definitely makes a difference! If you want a similar effect to the two cupcakes at the front, try to keep the colour right along the seam.

Once you’ve got the coloured stripe, you can fill the piping bag with the white cream cheese icing. Be careful not to smear the burgundy icing at this point- add the white icing down the opposite side of the bag to prevent it dragging any of the pigment. Pipe a little icing back into your bowl, until you see the burgundy stripe emerge. Now you’re ready to pipe onto your cupcakes!

I learned this piping technique from this YouTube video. It is really helpful to see the process in action, so definitely check the video out before you start!

You’ll need to hold the bag horizontally to pipe these flowers, so that the opening of the piping tip is vertical. Make sure that the thicker end of the tip is at the bottom (closest to the cake). The burgundy stripe (if you are using it) should be on top.

Start by piping a cone shape in the centre of the cupcake. Holding the bag so that the tip is vertical, perpendicular to the bottom of the cupcake, apply a small amount of pressure while turning the cake, to get as thin a cone as you can manage, but don’t worry about being too perfect!

Now you can begin to make the individual petals. Keep the thicker end of the tip at the bottom, and press up close to the cone you have just piped. Apply pressure while moving tip around the cone, before stopping the pressure once you’re about 1/3 of the way around, to create a single petal. Wipe off the tip, then repeat the process to make another petal.

Keep making petals in this way, wiping off the tip in between each petal, making the petals larger as you work your way out. You also want to gradually decrease the angle between your piping bag and the surface of your cupcake as you go, so that, when you reach the edge of the cake, the ‘slit’ of the tip is almost horizontal. This will give your flower a fuller look.

And there you have it! A buttercream rosation/carnose. It might look a little tricky, but the great thing about this method (and the two-toned petals!), is that it looks impressive even when it is not perfect, so don’t worry too much! As with all things, practice makes perfect, so just keep trying. If you want, you can fill the piping bag with plain cream cheese icing and practise on clean, upturned ramekins until you get the hang of it. When you’re done, just scrape the icing back into your bowl, cover it with clingfilm and place into the fridge to firm back up for 30 minutes or so before giving it a quick mix and going again. Just don’t practise with the burgundy stripe in the bag, because you won’t be able to mix the icing back together afterwards!

I hope you like my Maroon-inspired cupcakes! Let me know if you give them a try!

Gemma

xxx

Recipe

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Maroon Cupcakes

Burgundy velvet cupcakes, decorated with cream cheese icing flowers. Inspired by Taylor Swift's song, 'Maroon'.

Course Dessert, Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword Burgundy velvet cake, Cake, Cream cheese, Piping

Prep Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 55 minutes minutes

Ingredients

For the burgundy velvet cupcakes:

• 2 1/4 tbsp buttermilk
• 3/4 tsp red food colouring paste (see Note 1)
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 175 g self-raising flour
• 3/4 tbsp black cocoa powder (see Note 2)
• 190 g caster sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 200 g Stork (see Note 3)
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/4 tsp white wine vinegar

For the cream cheese icing:

• 150 g unsalted butter, softened
• 240 g full-fat cream cheese
• 840 g icing sugar
• 1/16 tsp black cocoa powder
• 1 drop red food colouring paste

Instructions

For the cupcakes:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 12-hole cupcake tray with burgundy cupcake cases and set aside.
• In a small jug, whisk together the buttermilk, red food colouring and vanilla until the colour is evenly incorporated. Set aside.
• Sift the flour, black cocoa powder, caster sugar and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer, which has been fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the Stork and eggs, then beat on medium-high speed (you may want to start on a slow speed, just to incorporate the flour and prevent a cloud) for about a minute, until the mixture is smooth and fluffy.
• Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add the red buttermilk mixture to the batter. Mix for a further 30 seconds, or until the red colour has been evenly distributed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again, to prevent any red streaks.
• In a small cup, whisk the baking soda and vinegar together. The mixture should fizz up immediately. Quickly pour this into the batter and give the whole thing a brief mix to incorporate. Divide the mixture between the 12 cases (each case should be about 3/4 full), then place into the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the cakes spring back when touched. Remove from the tin straight away and allow to cool completely on a wire rack, before decorating.

For the cream cheese icing:

• In a large bowl, beat the softened butter for 1-2 minutes with an electric mixer, until smooth and noticeably paler.
• Add the cream cheese and mix by hand until incorporated.
• Sift in the icing sugar and mix by hand until incorporated. Use electric mixer to beat for 10-15 seconds only, until fluffy, but still thick and stiff.

To decorate:

• Remove 1/2 tsp of the cream cheese icing and place in a small bowl/ramekin. Add the black cocoa powder and red food colouring and stir well to combine.
• Fit the piping bag with the #124 petal tip. Use a skewer (or the blunt edge of a dinner knife) to smear the burgundy icing all the way down the seam of the bag, on the same side as the thinner end of the tip.
• Being careful not to smear the burgundy icing already in the bag, fill the piping bag with the white icing. Pipe a little icing back into your bowl, until you see the burgundy colour come through along the top.
• Hold your cupcake in your non-dominant hand (alternatively, place the cupcake on a non-stick mat, on top of a turntable). Hold the piping bag in your dominant hand, ensuring that the petal tip is vertical, with the thicker end facing the bottom (the line of burgundy icing should be on top).
• Pipe a cone in the centre of the cupcake. Work your way out, adding petals around that centre cone, gradually increasing the size of each petal, while decreasing the angle between the tip and the cake's surface, as you go. Wipe the tip off in between each petal. By the time you reach the edge of the cake, your piping tip should be close to horizontal.
• Repeat the process for all of the cupcakes. Because of the cream cheese icing, these cupcakes will need to be stored in the fridge, where they will stay fresh for 2-3 days.

Notes

1. Make sure the food colouring you use is a) formulated to work in mixtures with a high-fat content and b) won’t be affected by the heat of the oven. I like to use Colour Mill colourings in my bakes. Don’t use a liquid food colouring, as it won’t provide enough pigment/will alter the consistency of the cake batter. 
2. Black cocoa powder is an ultra Dutch-processed form of cocoa powder. This recipe relies on it to achieve a deep, burgundy colour. I purchased mine here, but, if you cannot find it near you, you can substitute regular cocoa powder. You will, however, need to add (quite a bit of!) black food colouring, or replace the red colouring with even more burgundy colouring, to achieve a similar burgundy colour.
3. As always with my cakes, I prefer to use Stork (a baking margarine) in place of butter, because I think it makes for a fluffier, moister cake. If you do not want to use Stork, you can substitute with an equal amount of softened, unsalted butter. 

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Table of Contents

• The Lavender Haze Cupcake: Explained
• Cold Infusion vs Hot Infusion
• How to Make Chocolate Koi
• The Reverse-Creaming Method
• Food Colouring 101
• Whipped Cream Icing
• Decorating the Cupcakes
• Recipe

The Lavender Haze Cupcake: Explained

The Lavender Haze Cupcake has 3 main elements:

• Smoky lavender cake
• Smoky lavender whipped cream icing
• Chocolate koi decoration

Obviously, these cupcakes absolutely had to be flavoured with lavender. I mean- the song is literally called Lavender Haze. In the music video, the titular ‘haze’ is portrayed as a smoky purple mist- so, to get that ‘hazey’ vibe, I wanted to introduce a smoky element. To do that, I used lapsang souchong, which is a smoked tea. The combination of lavender and lapsang souchong makes for quite a mature flavour- think floral and a little musky. These cupcakes won’t be for everyone, much like how both lavender and lapsang souchong aren’t for everyone. However, I think the (admittedly, slightly unusual) combination of flavours embodies the song perfectly, so you should definitely give it a try!

To get the flavours into these cupcakes, I infused the milk (for the cakes) and the cream (for the icing). To get the best results, I did this in two ways: hot infusion (the more standard method) and cold infusion. More on that later.

Instead of a typical buttercream, these cupcakes are decorated with infused whipped cream. I think this is the perfect topping for 2 reasons: firstly, whipped cream is inherently so much lighter and airier (dare I say… hazier?) than buttercream. As a result, it just fits with the vibe I was going for with these cupcakes. Secondly, the cold-infused whipped cream really helps to lift the flavours in the cake, making it the perfect topping for these cupcakes. I find the whipped cream icing gives these cupcakes a fresher, lighter taste, making them even tastier!

The decoration of these cakes is hugely influenced by the song’s music video- particularly the scene in which Swift sits among clouds, surrounded by floating koi (strange, yes, but we roll with it).

Even though the koi themselves appear to be an Easter Egg for the release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), I still wanted to include them on these Lavender Haze cupcakes, so I made little chocolate koi- there’s a full tutorial for this below. The cupcakes themselves are lavender-coloured (lavender/purple food colouring is a key ingredient in this recipe! You can read more on that below) and half of the whipped cream is purple too! In fact, the piping on top reflects two aspects of the song/its music video: the white ‘clouds’ (see koi scene, above) and the purple ‘love spiral’ in the middle (I even have a few different decorating variations for you!).

So, that’s the cupcakes explained. Essentially, they are smoky lavender cupcakes, topped with two colours of smoky lavender cream, decorated with chocolate koi. Obviously, you can make these cupcakes without the extra decoration (i.e. just the cupcakes and cream on top, with no food colouring), if that’s more your vibe. Now though, let’s get into some specifics…

Cold Infusion vs Hot Infusion

As I said before, this recipes uses both hot and cold infusion to get the smoky lavender flavour into the cupcakes. This is not to make life more complicated, but to ensure you get the best out of all of your ingredients! Let’s discuss the difference between the two methods first:

For this recipe, you’ll use the hot infusion method to infuse the milk for the cupcake batter, while you’ll use the cold infusion method to infuse the cream for the whipped cream icing. Because flavours can change and become less intense during baking, it’s better to use a hot infusion for the cupcake batter. However, because the whipped cream is not baked, you don’t require as intense a flavour, so the cold infusion method can be used successfully. The benefit of using a cold infusion for whipped cream is two-fold: not only does cream whip up best when it is completely cold (meaning you’d have to chill it after hot-infusing anyway!) but, when you heat cream, you run the risk of splitting/curdling it, which would render it useless for whipping! Therefore, using both infusion methods for this recipe means you get the best flavour and the most successful results. It may seem like a bit of a faff, but, I promise, it will pay off!

One final note on the infusing process before we move on: both lavender and lapsang souchong are strong flavours. Don’t make your infusions too strong, because the delicate balance between the two ingredients is essential for these cakes. For the hot infusion of milk for the cake batter, I only leave the teabag in for 10 minutes and the lavender for 15 minutes– truly, that’s all you need! The cold infusion cream is a little more forgiving- I find 3 hours gives the perfect amount of flavour, but you can adapt this to your tastes by leaving it in the fridge for more/less time for a stronger/weaker flavour, respectively.

How to Make Chocolate Koi

My Lavender Haze Cupcakes are topped with little chocolate koi, in a nod to the song’s music video. These are actually pretty simple to make- they don’t even require any specialist tools (only some specialist ingredients)! Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:

• Modelling chocolate

I used white modelling chocolate for the bodies of my koi because I love the taste (I used this brand). However, you could use any other pale, edible modelling paste, such as marzipan or fondant. You need 3g of your chosen modelling paste for each koi, and you’ll need 1 or 2 koi per cupcake, depending on how you decorate it. This recipe makes 12-16 cupcakes, so you’ll need 36-96g of paste in total (though it might be a good idea to have some extra to practise with!).

• Flaked almonds

I used flaked almonds for the fins of my koi. Admittedly, koi have a lot of fins in real life, but I settled for 2, just to give the general impression. If you need to make a nut-free version of the koi, make sure you use a nut-free modelling paste (definitely not marzipan!) and use scissors to ‘snip’ two little fins on the side of the body, which you can then flatten & shape using your fingers, instead of using flaked almonds.

For each koi, you’ll need 2x flaked almonds, but you’ll want a selection of almonds to pick from, so that you can get matching pairs. Because the koi are so small, you’ll need to pick out the smaller almonds to get fins that are in proportion to the body!

• Edible ink markers in orange and black

The koi in the Lavender Haze music video are white with black and red/orange splotches. To achieve that look, I used these edible ink markers by Sugarflair, in the shades Liquorice and Tangerine. Using edible ink markers gives you more control and means that your koi are less likely to stain your mouth when you eat them, but you can substitute them with regular or powdered food colouring, if you prefer.

• Icing sugar

Because you’ll be working with modelling paste, you’ll need a little bit of icing sugar for dusting your work surface and hands throughout the process.

Equipment:

• Small, sharp knife
• Baking tray lined with greaseproof paper

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Weigh out 3g of modelling chocolate for the body. Knead on a clean surface, dusted with icing sugar, until smooth, then roll into a ball between the palms of your hands.

2. Roll the ball into a sausage shape, tapering one end slightly. Curve the tapered sausage slightly.

3. Use your finger to press down on the very end of the tapered part of the body, to flatten out the tail. Carefully peel the koi off of your work surface and dip the underside of the tail into some more icing sugar, to prevent further sticking.

4. Use a small, sharp knife to make an incision in the flattened tail, separating the tail into two fins.

5. Select two similarly-sized and shaped flaked almonds for the fins. Gently press one into each side of the thicker part of the body. Set aside on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper to dry out a little while you make more koi.

6. Once you have made all your koi bodies, you can add colour. Starting with the orange edible ink marker, scribble little patches of colour randomly over the body and fins of each koi. Set aside to dry for 10-15 minutes.

7. After the orange colour has dried for 10-15 minutes, repeat the process with the black edible ink marker. Set aside to dry for at least 30-40 minutes before using to decorate cupcakes.

And there you have it! Handmade chocolate koi- ready to decorate your cupcakes with. These may seem a little fiddly at first, but with a bit of practise, you’ll be making them super quickly!

The Reverse-Creaming Method

These cupcakes are made using the Reverse-Creaming Method. Typically, when you make a cake, you cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, beat in the eggs, then fold in the remaining dry ingredients. With reverse-creaming, the process is flipped on its head. You start by mixing the butter into the dry ingredients (plain flour, caster sugar and baking powder), until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, like this:

In a separate jug, you whisk together milk, eggs and vanilla, which you then pour into the butter/dry ingredient mixture in a slow, steady stream, with the mixer on low, before turning up the speed and giving the batter a final beat to smooth out all the lumps. The end result is a super easy, moist cake that is slightly denser than a typical sponge. I learned about the reverse-creaming method from The Scran Line, but it was popularised by Rose Levy Beranbaum in 1988.

While I usually use the standard creaming method for my cakes, I opted to use the reverse-creaming method for this recipe for a couple of reasons. Firstly, recipes made using the reverse-creaming method naturally have a larger quantity of milk in them. Because the infused milk is vital to this recipe and because it’s much easier to infuse a bigger quantity of milk (as opposed to a couple of tablespoons) without wastage, having more milk suits this recipe perfectly. The second reason is that I wanted the cakes themselves to be purple. Because cakes have a high sugar content, they tend to brown around the edges/top when baked, which obscures any colour used in the batter. You can get around this by baking your cakes at a very low temperature for longer- this recipe calls for 35-40 minutes at 140°C- a very low oven for cakes (this is another tip I learned from The Scran Line). The moister cupcake given by the reverse-creaming method can handle that low, slow bake much better than a typical sponge, which might dry out!

Although I learned about reverse-creaming from The Scran Line, I wasn’t crazy about the cake recipe from that website- it was a little too dense and tough for my taste (it did, however, look INCREDIBLE- no browning whatsoever AND a super smooth top and bake). Instead, I adapted the cooking time of this recipe, by Benjamina Ebuehi. These ratios, plus the low, slow cooking time, gave me the moistest, easiest cupcake that retained its purple colour during baking. It caramelised slightly more than The Scran Line’s recipe, but not so much that I was willing to sacrifice the delicious texture.

Food Colouring 101

I learned the hard way that not all food colourings are made equal. When you’re colouring a batter, you need a food colouring that a) will not be affected by the heat of the baking process and b) is specially formulated to combine evenly into high-fat mixtures. I have always used food colourings from Wilton, which are great, but they are no good at all for baking with. I tried to get a pretty, lavender cake and I ended up with cakes that either had an off-putting grey tinge or a bizarre ombre of pink to blue (???). Anyway, infuriated, I tried out a new brand, Colour Mill, which even happens to have a specific lavender shade, which is apparently specifically formulated to work well with high-fat mixtures/baking.

It was perfect! I used it for both the cake batter and the whipped cream, and I was so pleased with the results. Not only did it give a super even colour, but it was also incredibly easy to use because it comes in a squeeze-y bottle, so I didn’t have to faff around with cocktail sticks/spoons.

Whipped Cream Icing

Ah, whipped cream, the bane of my life. No, but in all seriousness- why is it so temperamental? You underwhip it and it slides off your cakes. You overwhip it by a second and you have butter. You pipe it and it loses its shape. You cannot win! There are whole YouTube videos out there comparing different ways of stabilising whipped cream, ranging from the pretty gross (cornflour (?!)) to the straight-up different food item altogether (surely adding cream cheese just makes it… cream cheese icing?). Anyway, after years of strife, I think I’ve cracked it- and it’s a lot easier than you might think!

I ‘stabilise’ my whipped cream with icing sugar. You only need a couple of tablespoons, but it really does help it keep its structure. I mean, this is not strictly stabilised whipped cream- you will need to refrigerate the cakes after decorating them, because, if your cream gets too warm, it will melt. Long story short, add the sugar, don’t leave your cakes out in the sun for hours (i.e., don’t be a silly sausage) and keep them refrigerated as much as you can. You’ll get great tasting whipped cream that stays firm. Win.

The other thing to consider is how much you whip your cream. Cream has this incredibly annoying habit of going from pourable to butter in the space of a few seconds. Once your cream is whipped, it will keep getting thicker the more you mess with it, whether you are just lightly stirring it or, yes, even piping it. Whip your cream so that it just hold stiff peaks. When you lift the whisk, it should just hold its shape, but the cream should still look soft and glossy. By the time you get it in the piping bag and onto your cupcakes, the cream will be perfect.

This recipe calls for half of the cream to be coloured lavender. In the recipe, I tell you to split your infused cream in half and add colouring to one bowl before whipping it and I strongly suggest you do this! I know it seems so much easier to whip all the cream and then colour it, but, by the time you have incorporated all of the colour evenly, your cream will be overwhipped and you’ll have to start again 🙁 . By adding the colouring at the start, you’ll have more control over the finished colour (you can still add more as you whip, before you get to stiff peaks!) and perfectly whipped cream.

Decorating the Cupcakes

You can decorate these cupcakes however you want! I tried out a few different styles, all of which use the same whipped cream and 1-2 piping tips, so you can easily mix-and-match, if that’s your vibe. Once you know the basics, they’re all super easy to achieve.

The ‘Love Spiral’

Named after one of the lyrics in the song, the ‘Love Spiral’ only uses purple cream in a piping bag fitted with a large, open star tip. If you want to use this technique, don’t divide your cream into two bowls and just colour the whole lot lavender. After that, it’s a very straightforward swirl of icing on top of each cake: hold the piping bag vertically above the centre of the cake and apply a gentle pressure. Keep applying that pressure as you move out from the centre of the cake and ‘draw’ a circle around the perimeter, then continue around in a spiral, building up the icing and coming back towards the centre as you go, until you reach the middle. At this point, release the pressure to finish off the spiral. Done!

The Cloud

As further tribute to the cloud/koi scene in the Lavender Haze music video, this icing style makes the top of the cupcake into one fluffy cloud. Super dreamy! You only need uncoloured cream for this style, so skip the food colouring and whip up all the cream in one. Place the cream into a piping bag fitted with a large, round tip, and pipe little dollops of cream around the perimeter of the cupcake.

Use an angled palette knife (or teaspoon, if you don’t have one!), to gently drag from the centre of each dollop, into the middle of the cake, like in the photo below:

Once the bottom layer is done, repeat the process, piping dollops then dragging them into the centre, on top of the first layer, making sure to offset the dollops.

Finish off the cupcakes with a final dollop on top, in the centre, and you have a cloud cupcake!

The Combo

The cupcakes in the thumbnail were decorated with a combination of the two styles. For this style, you’ll need to colour half of your cream lavender, while leaving the other half white. Pipe the first layer of the ‘Cloud’ icing style as above, using the white cream in a piping bag fitted with a large, round tip, then make a smaller ‘Love Spiral’ in the centre, using the purple cream in a piping bag fitted with a large, open star tip.

Once you have iced all of your cupcakes, all that’s left to do is decorate each one with 1 or 2 chocolate koi and you have your Lavender Haze Cupcakes!

Recipe

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Lavender Haze Cupcakes

Inspired by Taylor Swift's song 'Lavender Haze', these smoky lavender cupcakes are topped with whipped cream clouds + a love spiral, as well as some handmade chocolate koi, in a nod to the song's music video.

Course Dessert, Snack

Keyword Cupcake, Lapsang souchong, Lavender, Lavender Haze, Reverse creaming method, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift Cupcakes, Whipped cream

Prep Time 2 hours hours

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Infusing time 3 hours hours 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 5 hours hours 55 minutes minutes

Servings 12 – 16 cupcakes

Equipment

• 12-16 lavender cupcake cases
• 1 large round piping nozzle
• 1 large open star nozzle
• 2 piping bags
• 1 offset spatula

Ingredients

For the smoky lavender whipped cream:

• 500 ml double cream
• 1.5 tsp dried lavender (see note 1)
• 1 lapsang souchong tea bags
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• Lavender food colouring

For the chocolate koi decorations:

• icing sugar , for dusting
• 36-96 g white modelling chocolate (see note 2)
• flaked almonds (see note 3)
• edible ink markers, black and orange (see note 4)

For the smoky lavender cupcakes:

• 240 ml milk
• 1 1/2 tsp dried lavender (see note 1)
• 1 lapsang souchong tea bag
• 250 g plain flour
• 250 g caster sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 100 g unsalted butter, at room temperature (see note 5)
• 2 eggs
• 1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Make the smoky lavender cream:

• Begin by cold-infusing the smoky lavender cream, as it will need to infuse for about 3 hours. Add the cream, dried lavender and lapsang souchong teabag to a bowl, cover and place into the fridge. Leave for 3 hours, while you make the rest of the cake components.

Make the chocolate koi:

• Dust a clean work surface with icing sugar. Knead your modelling chocolate on the surface, until you have a smooth ball.
• Take 3g of the modelling chocolate and roll into a ball between the palms of your hands (dip it into the icing sugar if it gets too soft/sticky). Flatten your palms slightly and continue rolling to elongate the ball- you're aiming for a rough sausage shape. Gently taper off one end of the sausage for the tail. Bend the sausage slightly, so your koi has a curved body.
• Use your finger to press down on the very end of the tapered part of the sausage to flatten it and begin the tail. Carefully peel the 'tail' off the work surface, then dip the underside of it into icing sugar to prevent further sticking. Use a small, sharp knife to make a cut down the centre of the flattened tail.
• Select 2 small flaked almonds (try to find 2 that are a similar size/shape to each other). Gently insert one almond into the chocolate on each side of the thicker part of the body. Set this first koi aside to dry out a little while you make the others- you will need 1 or 2 per cupcake, depending on how you plan to decorate.
• Once you have shaped all of the koi, it is time to decorate them. Using the orange edible marker first, gently sketch rough patches of colour all over the body and almond fins of the koi. Set these aside to dry for 10-15 mins, before repeating with the black marker. Set the decorated koi aside to dry, at room temperature, while you make the cupcakes (at least 30-40 minutes).

Make the smoky lavender cupcakes:

• Preheat the oven to 140°C (120°C fan) and line a 12-hole cupcake pan with lavender cupcake cases (this recipe will make 12-16 cupcakes, so you may find you need an additional 4 cases to line another cupcake pan).
• Begin by infusing the milk. Place the milk, lavender and lapsang souchong tea bag into a small saucepan. Place over medium heat and bring to just below a simmer. When you see little bubbles forming around the edge of the pan and steam starting to come from the milk, turn off the heat, cover and set aside.
• After 10 minutes, remove the teabag from the milk (you can discard the teabag at this point). After a further 5 minutes, strain the milk into a jug through a fine mesh sieve and discard the lavender. Allow the infused milk to cool to room temperature before proceeding.
• Sieve the flour, sugar and baking powder into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the butter and mix on low speed for 2-3 minutes, until the mixture resembles fine sand and no large lumps of butter remain.
• Add the eggs and vanilla extract to the cooled infused milk. Whisk to combine and then, with the mixer on low, add the wet ingredients to the butter/dry ingredient mixture in a slow, steady stream. Once you have added all of the wet ingredients, stop the mixer (the mixture will still look a little lumpy and undermixed at this stage) and add the lavender food colouring. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and mix until you have a smooth, evenly coloured batter- about 1 minute.
• Fill the cupcake cases about 3/4 of the way full (I use a regular-sized ice cream scoop). Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cupcakes spring back when touched lightly. Carefully remove from the pans as soon as the cupcakes come out of the oven (this will help to prevent greasy cupcake cases) and transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Prepare the whipped cream topping:

• Once the cream has been infusing in the fridge for 3 hours, strain it through a fine mesh sieve to remove the lavender and the teabag. Divide the cream into two equal parts (about 250ml each- though you will inevitably have lost a little cream in the straining process) and place each half in a separate, medium bowl (see note 6).
• Sift 1 tbsp icing sugar into each bowl of cream, then whisk (I prefer to use an electric hand whisk) the cream in one bowl until stiff peaks form (be careful not to overwhisk, or you will end up with butter).
• Colour the second bowl of cream lavender with food colouring, before whipping to stiff peaks, like the first bowl. Once both creams are whipped, you can proceed to decorating the cupcakes.

Decorate the cupcakes:

• Fit one piping bag with a large round nozzle, and another with a large open star nozzle. Place the uncoloured cream into the bag with the round nozzle, and the lavender cream into the bag with the star nozzle.
• Begin with the uncoloured cream. Pipe dollops of cream around the edge of each cupcake, then use the offset spatula to drag each dollop into the centre, to make the 'clouds'.
• Switch to the lavender icing. Pipe a spiral of cream into the centre of each cupcake, in between the clouds.
• Once the cupcakes are iced, place a chocolate koi on top of each cake to decorate. Once iced, the cupcakes must be refrigerated and are best eaten within 2-3 hours, though they will keep for up to a day. If you want to make the cakes in advance, you can bake the cupcakes and keep them, undecorated, in an airtight container for 2-3 days, then decorate just before serving.

Notes

1. Make sure the lavender you purchase is culinary grade. You can buy the packet I got here. 
2. I used white modelling chocolate, but you can use any pale modelling paste, e.g. fondant or marzipan. You will need 3g of modelling paste per koi, so decide how many koi you want to put on each cake to work out how much paste you need.
3. You will only need 2x flaked almonds per koi, but it is best to have more than you need. This will ensure that you are able to find matching pairs of flaked almonds that are on the smaller side, so that the fins are proportional to the bodies of the fish. 
4. I used edible ink markers for easier application (you can find the markers I used here– I used the shades Liquorice and Tangerine), but you can use regular or powdered food colouring if you prefer. Regular food colouring will, however, take longer to dry and be more likely to stain your mouth when you eat it. 
5. I prefer to use Stork in place of butter in my cakes, because I think it produces a lighter, softer crumb. If you’re using Stork, substitute the butter for an equal amount of Stork. If you’re using unsalted butter, make sure it is softened and at room temperature before you begin baking. 
6. Once cream reaches soft peaks, it will stiffen up incredibly quickly, even when mixing with a spatula by hand. It’s best to split the cream into two separate bowls and add the lavender food colouring to one bowl of cream before whipping it, so you can get an even colour distribution without worrying about overmixing the cream and ending up with butter!

I really hope you have enjoyed this post- I had so much fun coming up with the concept for these cupcakes and working out the recipe for them. Let me know what you think in the comments! I’d love to hear which Taylor Swift song you’re most excited to see in cupcake form!

Gemma

xxx

A quick notes before we get into it: this recipe can be very easily adapted to accommodate whatever shape/size cake(s) you would like to make. As a general rule of thumb, I like to go by number of eggs, and scale the other ingredients proportionally, i.e. this recipe uses 3 eggs and makes 12 full-size cupcakes, 4 eggs will give you enough batter to make 2x 8-inch circle cakes, 2 eggs will make 12 fairy cakes (flatter versions of cupcakes- I think this might be a British thing?) or 24 mini cupcakes. I’ve made all sorts using the ratios from this recipe (see below, for a couple of examples), and they all taste great!

I’m hoping to make a post at some point about scaling cake recipes, where I can talk about quantities, cooking times and temperatures, so let me know if you think that would be helpful!

For now, though, let’s discuss the cupcakes. They are maple syrup sponges with chopped pecans folded right into the batter. The cupcakes are then decorated with a maple syrup icing and a mixture of pecan halves and chopped pecans.

The batter uses 1 part brown sugar to 4 parts caster sugar. This just enhances that intense, maple-y flavour, but the cupcakes will still work if you replace the brown sugar with caster sugar. However, it won’t work if you replace the caster sugar with brown sugar! You’ll end up with a dense, solid cake that just doesn’t have the fluffiness that a cake should. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Now, let’s talk butter (an excellent topic, no?). I spent a lot of my childhood watching the Food Network, so I was essentially raised by Ina Garten (who, by the way, was the one who taught me to toss heavier mix-ins, like the nuts in this recipe, in flour before adding them to cake batter, so they don’t sink while baking!). She loves butter. I love butter. However, I was actually raised by my mum (and my dad, but he bakes bread, not cake). Growing up, we never made cakes with actual butter, but with Stork, which is a brand of baking margarine here in the UK. My mum swears that Stork produces a lighter, fluffier cake and, honestly, I have to agree (bonus! Stork is already quite soft, so you don’t need to worry about softening it/bringing it to room temperature before baking, which is a definite win in my book). I know that a lot of people have strong opinions about using baking spreads/margarines, and you by no means have to use it- this recipe will work fine if you use softened, unsalted butter instead, your cupcakes might just be a little less soft and fluffy.

Finally, I wanted to talk a little bit about the icing technique I used in this recipe. I tried my best to explain it within the recipe, but it makes it sound a lot more complicated than it actually is! I love icing cupcakes like this because of how simple the process is- there’s no piping, no needing to be perfect, no finicky decorations. You literally slap on the icing, give it a spread, straighten off the edges and roll it in chopped nuts (which truly cover a multitude of sins). A few tips: I like to use an offset spatula to do this because it helps with the movement and has a fine, straight edge, but a knife can also work. Put more icing on than you think you’ll need- you’ll end up scraping a lot off when you straighten up the sides anyway. When you’re straightening off the sides, hold your cupcake in your non-dominant hand, and, using your dominant hand, hold the offset spatula/knife vertically against the cake and run it around the circumference of the cake, turning the cake to help you.

Right, I think it’s time for the recipe, don’t you?

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Maple Pecan Cupcakes

Maple cupcakes with pecan chunks, topped with maple buttercream and decorated with more pecans

Course Dessert, Snack

Keyword Cake, Cupcake, Maple Syrup, Pecans

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Baking Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 45 minutes minutes

Servings 12 Cupcakes

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

• 150 g unsalted butter, softened (I use Stork baking spread)
• 120 g caster sugar
• 30 g soft brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 150 g self-raising flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 100 g pecans, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 tbsp milk
• 3 tbsp maple syrup

For the icing:

• 150 g butter, softened
• 300 g icing sugar, sifted
• 3 tsp maple syrup
• 2-4 tbsp milk

To decorate:

• 100 g pecan halves

Instructions

For the cupcakes:

• Preheat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan). Line a 12-hole cupcake tray with paper cases and set aside while you make the batter.
• Place the butter and both sugars into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on high speed for 3-5 minutes until pale and creamy.
• With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs, one at a time, making sure each is fully incorporated before adding the next.
• Combine the chopped pecans with 1 tsp of the flour (this will prevent the pecans from sinking to the bottom of the cupcakes during baking). Sift together the remaining flour with the baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and mix on medium speed until just combined.
• Add the milk and maple syrup to the mixer bowl and mix for a few seconds, until combined. Gently fold in the flour-coated chopped pecans.
• Divide the batter between the cupcake tins (I like to use a regular-sized ice cream/cookie scoop for this- it fills the cupcake cases perfectly and ensures all of the cakes are even. You want to fill the cases about 2/3 full.
• Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until they are golden brown and spring back when touched. Because of the higher sugar content, these cakes will be slightly darker than a typical vanilla sponge- don't worry about this! Allow the cupcakes to cool for a few minutes in the pan, then transfer to a wire wrack to cool completely.

For the icing:

• Place the softened butter into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on high speed for 4-5 minutes, until the butter is soft and significantly paler (almost white), scraping down the edges of the bowl with a spatula as needed.
• Add half of the sifted icing sugar to the butter and mix on low-medium speed until fully incorporated. Increase the speed to high and beat for 2-3 minutes.
• Add the maple syrup and 2 tbsp of the milk. Beat on high speed for another 2-3 minutes.
• Add the remaining icing sugar, mix on low-medium speed until combined, then beat on high for a final 3-5 minutes, until fluffy and airy. Check the consistency at this point, you're looking for a buttercream that holds its shape, but is still soft and spreadable. If the buttercream is too stiff, add more milk, a little at a time, until your desired consistency is achieved.
• Turn the stand mixer to low speed, and mix the icing for 1 minute. This will make for a smoother, silkier buttercream.

To decorate:

• Set aside 12 pecan halves for later and finely chop the remaining pecans. Spread the chopped pecans out, in an even layer, on the chopping board.
• Place a generous amount of buttercream on top of a cupcake. Using an offset spatula or knife, spread the buttercream out past the sides of the case. You're looking to get a flat surface, right across the top of the cake, with excess at the edges. Then, holding your spatula vertically (perpendicular to the flat surface of buttercream), scrape around the circumference of the cake to achieve a thick, buttercream 'disk' atop your cupcake.
• Before the buttercream has a chance to firm up, gently roll the straight edge of the buttercream 'disk' in the chopped pecans, right around the circle. Finish the cupcake by placing one of the reserved halves in the centre. Repeat for the remaining cupcakes.

Let me know if you try these out, I’d love to hear about it!

Gemma

xxx