Charity Bake #4 - Raspberry surprise cupcakes

Hi everyone,
Here I am again with another charity bake. Today I took my inspiration from springtime, which was brought on by the gorgeous pastel spotty and stripy cupcake cases I spotted in Lakeland on Saturday.

Raspberry surprise cupcakes

Makes 12 (I made double quantity)

Ingredients:
For the cakes:
175g softened butter
175g caster sugar
175g self raising flour
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tbsp milk
Approx 60g seedless raspberry jam

For the icing:
150g softened butter
280g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk

Equipment:
1 12 hole muffin tin

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / Gas 4, and place 12 cupcake cases into a cake tin.
2.  Place the butter and sugar into a large bowl and beat until pale and fluffy.
3.  Beat the eggs and then add gradually, beating well to combine. With the last addition add a little flour to stop the mixture from curdling.
4.  Add the vanilla extract and beat well to combine.
5.  Add the flour a little at a time and fold in gently. Add the milk and fold in gently until the mixture is a "dropping" consistency.
6. Fill each cupcake case  1/2 - 2/3 full of mixture; then bake in oven for approx 20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean and top of capek springs back when pressed gently.
7. Cool in tin for approx. 10 minutes then turn cupcakes onto wire rack to coll completely.
8. Core top of each cupcake using a corer or sharp knife, and fill cavity of each cupcake with 1/2 - 1 tsp of seedless raspberry jam.
9. Make buttercream by placing butter into a bowl and beating til very pale and soft, then adding sifted icing sugar gently, interspersed with a little milk until desired consistency is reached.
10. Ice top of each cupcake with buttercream and decorate as desired ... I used pastel sprinkles to match my cupcake cases - dots for the spotty cases and sugar strands for the stripy!! :-)

Observations:
I made a double batch of these as they were for a charity bake, and it did mean I struggled a bit with my timings and where was best to place them in the oven. I also didn't have quite enough icing sugar to make double quantity of icing so I had to skimp a bit on that, and still left a couple of cakes uniced! .. and I STILL CAN'T get the hang of piping ... I ended up in a complete mess with a split bag which I then had to try to scrape out and spread on the cakes with a palette knife!! waaah!!

However I DID make good use of the leftover sponge "cores" by having  them as pudding with a spoonful of cream and jam - nice!

I would like to enter these into this month's Calendar Cakes challenge hosted by Rachel (Dollybakes) and Laura (Laura Loves Cake) - the theme for March is spring, and I think these bright pastel colours are very spring-like :-)

That's all for now ... back later with a fundraising update.

Update: I was amazed and delighted with the popularity of these cupcakes ... they were all gone in an hour and I was beating off disappointed customers (who didn't make it to the kitchen in time) with a mucky stick!! 

Amount raised: £21.00

Hugs,