I am mostly drawn towards coffee and walnut cupcakes but this time I left out the coffee in the cake batter and used Baileys in the buttercream. Good idea – yes?
For the cake batter I prefer to use salted butter or to make them lighter substitute some of the butter with margarine. I always use unsalted butter for my buttercream, it’s all down to individual taste, and I know salted this and that is everywhere, but I don’t think salted buttercream will ever be for me.
The recipe below is for 9 cupcakes – cupcake cases vary and these are medium size to allow for rising but leaving enough room for the buttercream topping.
This month I need to concentrate on eating less sugar, but failed, I grazed on seeds and then ate a slice of Christmas Cake……..
You will need: 9 muffin cases and a muffin tin
For the cupcakes:
175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
175g self raising flour
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g chopped walnuts
For the Icing:
250g softened unsalted butter
500g sieved icing sugar
1 tbsp Baileys
Walnut halves to decorate
- Preheat the oven to 180oC.
- Add all the cake ingredients in a bowl and beat for two minutes with an electric mixer. Stir in the walnuts.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin cases.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked. Cool for 10 minutes and then place on a rack to cool.
- For the icing: beat the icing sugar and butter together until fluffy. Stir in the Baileys.
- Pipe or spread the buttercream over the cupcakes and top with walnut halves.
- Can be frozen decorated.
