Raspberry white chocolate cupcakes

I used to make cupcakes quite often for celebrations but now tend to make more cakes for birthdays. There have been several family birthdays this month, so I'm finishing off my month of baking with some decadent raspberry white chocolate cakes.

This is a modified version of a recipe from my favourite local cupcake recipe book, Divine Cupcakes by Tamara Jane, formerly of Tempt Cupcakes. I halved the quantities and still ended up with more than two dozen cupcakes! I also added a teaspoon of Fresh As freeze dried raspberry powder, popped some dried raspberries into the centre of each and added a teaspoon of raspberry powder to the vanilla frosting. Yum!

Raspberry white chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients

• 300 g plain flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 t freeze-dried raspberry powder
• 250 g butter, chopped
• 250 ml milk
• 450 g sugar or caster sugar
• 150 g white chocolate, chopped
• 2 eggs, whisked
• 1 t vanilla essence
• freeze dried raspberries

Method

1. Sift flour and baking powder together into a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and set aside.
2. Put butter, milk, sugar and white chocolate into a medium saucepan and melt together over a low heat. Stir continuously with a flat-bottomed wooden stirrer until the chocolate has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Alternatively, place ingredients into a ceramic bowl and melt in the microwave on high for approximately 5 minutes, or melt gently over a bain-marie. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
3. Preheat the oven to 155°C while you wait for the chocolate mixture to cool. Line two 12-hole muffin trays with cupcake papers.
4. Pour the cooled mixture into the dry ingredients and whisk together until smooth and all lumps are dissolved. Gently stir in the eggs and vanilla essence until just combined. This is a very runny mixture.
5. Divide the mixture evenly between the cupcakes papers. They should be two-third full. Press 1-2 freeze dried raspberries into the centre of each cupcake and cover with mixture. (Beware: they will keep trying to float up to the top!)
6. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in the muffin trays for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Decorate by piping with vanilla or vanilla and raspberry buttercream frosting or white chocolate ganache. 

Raspberry white chocolate cupcakes