Recipe: Coffee Cupcakes

My name is Anna and I am a coffee addict.

It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up and I honestly don’t think I can remember the last day that I went without a cup.

However it is not just coffee in its liquid form that I love; I am a fan of anything coffee flavoured, whether it’s a dollop of tiramisu, a piece of coffee flavoured chocolate or a slice of classic coffee cake.

Therefore I was really excited when I came across these coffee cupcakes whilst perusing Frances Quinn’s cookery book Quinntesential Baking the other day. Frances was the winner of the 2013 series of The Great British Bake Off and I have to say that she is one of my favourite ever contestants. Every week she would come up with something quirky and fun to present to the judges and her whimsical style of baking is definitely something I look to for inspiration.

These coffee cupcakes stood out to me as a way of making a cupcake with a difference. They are so quick and easy to make but the end result is really effective and eye catching. I did change the recipe a bit and used cream cheese instead of mascarpone for the icing. I was thinking about adding coffee to the icing so it would be brown and then doing a latte art effect on top with some icing sugar, but decided against it in the end- maybe next time though. I bought the coffee cups of Amazon for a fiver and I think they make a great alternative to conventional cupcake cases.

Makes: 12

Prep Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

For the Cakes:

150g Stork

150g Light Muscovado Sugar

3 Eggs

150g Self Raising Flour

3 Tbsp Instant Coffee Granules

3 Tbsp Boiled Water

For the Coffee Syrup:

Half Tsp Instant Coffee

50ml Boiling Water

50g Caster Sugar

For the Icing:

300g Icing Sugar

125g Cream Cheese

50g Butter

(Coffee if you decide you want to flavour your icing- I decided not to in the end)

Method:

1.Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas Mark 4

2. Add the boiling water to the instant coffee and mix it until the granules have dissolved.

3. Cream together the stork and sugar.

4. Add the eggs, flour and coffee and mix until everything is incorporated.

5. Place your coffee cups in a 12 hole muffin tin or on a baking tray.

6. Use an ice cream scoop to fill your cupcake cases or alternatively spoon the mixture into the cases with a tablespoon until they are two-thirds full.

7. Bake the cakes in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch.

8. While the cakes are baking you can get started on the coffee syrup.

9. Simply put the instant coffee granules and boiling water in to a pan and mix until the granules have dissolved. Then stir in the caster sugar.

10. Set the pan over a medium heat and then bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and then simmer until all of the sugar has dissolved and you are left with a syrup.

11. Once the cakes are out of the oven, you then need to prick them with a skewer or cocktail stick. Then brush the tops of the cakes with the coffee syrup. The holes in the cake will allow the syrup to sink in, leaving you with a nice moist sponge.

12. To make the icing, mix together the butter and cream cheese and then add the icing sugar a bit at a time until you have a achieved a soft fluffy consistency.

13. Spoon a dollop of icing on to each cake and then spread with a palette knife until you have a smooth top.

14. Sprinkle the cakes with cocoa powder. I printed off a coffee bean image from the Internet and then used this as a stencil.