Thursday, January 24, 2013

Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes



A recent phenomenon in the world of cupcakes is cuptails! Or caketails. Basically, cocktail flavoured cupcakes. I love cupcakes and I love cocktails! Perfect match :)

There have been a few big birthdays recently! These strawberry margarita cupcakes were for Rachel's 21st. She works in a cocktail bar and started birthday celebrations with a cocktail, so I thought it was the perfect idea!
I really struggled to find a recipe that didn't use actual rum. I had bought rum flavouring, as I don't drink rum, so buying a whole bottle would be a waste. Next time I might use real rum as the flavouring wasn't quite right and smelled quite orangey. I also wanted to use canned strawberries because they are out of season at the moment, so the fresh ones are very expensive! I spent ages looking and in the end I decided that I should just kind of follow a recipe, making my own alterations as I went.


Recipe:
Cupcake:
- 175g butter
- 175g caster sugar
- Finely grated zest of 1 lime
- Juice of 1/2 a lime
- 1 tsp rum flavouring (or 2 tbsp rum)
- 3 large eggs
- 175g strawberries (if canned, then drain and chop them, if fresh, then hull and chop them)
- 280g self-raising flour

Icing:
- 500g icing sugar
- 60g butter
- 60g strawberries (if canned, then drain and chop them, if fresh, then hull and chop them)
- Zest of 1 lime
- Juice of 1/2 a lime (you can add extra at the end as long as it doesn't ruin the consistency!
- 1 tsp rum flavouring (or 2 tbsp rum and add extra icing sugar until you get the desired consistency)

Decorations:
- pink/red and green neon sugar (for the sugar rim)
- Lime, quartered and sliced

Before making the cakes and icing, everything should be at room temperature.
The recipe says it makes 15 cupcakes, but I managed to make 22!


1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line 2 muffin trays with cupcake cases, or bake one tray and reuse it.
2. Cream the butter for as long as you can. 
3. Add the sugar, lime zest, lime juice and rum flavouring, mix.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
5. Sift in the flour in and mix again.
6. Put a heaped tablespoon of batter into each cupcake case. 
7. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.
8. While the cakes are cooling, start to make the icing. Cream the butter until it is pale and fluffy. 
9. Add the icing sugar, strawberries, lime zest, lime juice and rum flavouring. Mix it together s-l-o-w-l-y at first so that icing sugar doesn't fly everywhere!!
10. Pipe the icing onto the cakes.
11. Sprinkle the coloured sugar onto a plate, and roll the edges of the iced cupcakes in the sugar, to create a sugar rim. Put a piece of lime in the side. You can also cut up strawberry pencils and use them as a 'straw'.

These are all of Rachel's cakes!


Zoe x

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