Pimm’s Cupcakes

Aaaah….Pimm’s!  The epitome of the British summer, Wimbledon and…hang on a minute!  That’s not Pimm’s, it’s RAIN!!

Anyway, the unusual flash of sunshine this morning inspired me to share this recipe with you.  It is adapted from the Love Bakery cookbook and is a mixture of a cupcake and a cocktail – a cuptail!  Inspired!  I have tried these out on friends, family and the school secretaries and got a resounding ‘Hurrah’ and ‘Please can I have the recipe?’  So here it is….

Ingredients:

Cakes

125 soft unsalted butter
125g caster sugar
2tbsp Pimm’s no.1
2 eggs
125g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3tbsp semi-skimmed milk

Icing

125g soft unsalted butter
1tbsp Pimm’s no.1
2 drops lemon juice
150g sifted icing sugar
1dsp semi-skimmed milk

Filling

4 strawberries plus extra for decoration
2 slices of orange with peel removed
2 slices cucumber
About 4 mint leaves (+ 10 for decoration)

 How to make:

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160 fan) and line a muffin tin with 10 muffin cases (use red ones if you have them).  In a mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and Pimm’s for about 7 mins or until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, one by one, and mix for a further 2 mins.  Combine the flour and baking powder then add to the mix with the milk and blend for one more minute.  Dollop an ice-cream scoopful of mixture into each case and bake for 17 minutes in the centre of the oven.  I turn them once and put a small bowl of water at the bottom to keep them moist, but that’s up to you!  Cool on a wire rack when cooked.

For the filling you need to pulse all the ingredients in a blender until chunky/mushy.  Don’t go overboard else you’ll just have puree.  Use an apple-corer to remove the centre of each cake then fill the hole with the mixture.  Pop the sponge core back on top like a lid.

To make the icing, you need to cream together the butter, lemon and Pimm’s for 2 minutes until fluffy.  Add the icing sugar and milk and mix together for another 2 mins. Pipe the icing in a swirl on top of the cakes and decorate with strawberries and a mint leaf.

Arrange them on a nice white/silver plate and whisk them off to impress your friends and make them love you forever.

Yum