Almond, Strawberry and Champagne jam, Rose Cupcakes

I've been wanting to try my hand at creating rose cupcakes for a little while now.

I've seen plain ones, multi coloured or two toned ones, mini and large ones. They really are so pretty. Surely they'd be tricky to make? Turns out, they are very simple to create indeed!

I was throwing a small summer tea party for family and decided that these would be a perfect addition. Light almond sponge, decadent strawberry and champagne jam filling and a pretty topping. Romantic summery cakes!

Your grandma/mum/aunt/sister will love them and may even make a sort of cooing noise at how pretty these little cakes are, taking pictures to show Auntie Jean or Betty down at the bowls club (not your sister, that would be odd). Your grandad/dad/brother/uncle will express how impressed they are in a more discreet manly fashion and may even make a 'hmph' noise on site of these. However, they will probably ensure that they also pick up a big manly wedge of pie or sandwich to accompany one of these on their plate and only secretly and quietly quaff one. Probably in one bite. Like a man. Saying something like 'Did it look like a rose on top? I hadn't noticed. I just ate it.'

First, I started on the almond sponge. This is a recipe I've used time and time again. It creates quite ugly looking cakes, due to the fact that there is no actual butter or oil in the mixture (just ground almonds, eggs, sugar and baking powder). This recipe is from Kate Shirazi's cupcake magic book. Its the recipe used to create her cherry and almond cakes. Don't be fooled by looks though. There's a reason I use this recipe so often. It's delicious and very light!

This is the first time that I have used my shiny new stand mixer to make this recipe. I can't believe the difference it made! The structure of the cupcakes comes from the whisked egg whites. The mixer whisked them to such a volume that instead of making 12 cupcakes, as normally would be the case, it made 18!

Here's the mounds of whisked egg whites! Clever little mixer.

 
Here are 12 of them, straight out of the oven, not looking particularly attractive. But my house smells of sweet baked almond cake and we all know that in an hour or two they will be prettily decorated and no one will be any the wiser!

After these have cooled I used a melon baller to scoop out the centre of each cupcake. Its up to you what you decide to do with the centre. You may wish to test each scoop as you go along (to check for consistency) you may wish to ask a friend to supervise you and ensure that you throw all of these little sweet almond cake centres in the bin because once you have tasted one scoop I can guarantee you will want the rest. Sweet, fluffy and light almond cake bites!

Then I filled each cupcake with a spoonful of strawberry champagne jam. I used Whittard's, its my favourite jam. Sweet, indulgent with a strong, rich strawberry flavour. yum!

  

Now its time for the fun bit! The icing!

Firstly you have to ensure that you have one of these nozzles...

This is a 2D nozzle from the craft company. http://www.craftcompany.co.uk/drop-flower-nozzle-11361.html Who'd have thought such an inexpensive purchase could transform ordinary piped icing into pretty two toned pink roses? I trapsed all around Manchester trying to find one of these nozzles and despite the number of specialised baking shops we have in the city, none of them had any! So I bought this online instead and also stocked up on some pretty 'brown' polka dot cupcake cases (which actually look grey and offset the pink of the roses wonderfully) and pink polka dot cases. I then resisted the temptation to buy about 10 other items I hadn't realised were so essential until I saw them (cake thermometer, teddy face cupcake mould and rainbow dust scented sugar strands with a pumpkin scent. Who knew these existed? They are now all essential items though. Must pop back nearer halloween for those sprinkles...)

Then, as I wanted to create a subtle two toned colour for my roses I added a small amount of rose pink colour to my vanilla buttercream.

Then I 'painted' the inside of my piping bag with the concentrated rose pink icing colour. I had meant to buy a new brush to do this but forgot to. So, I improvised and my pastry brush was used instead!

Don't worry. We cleaned him up afterwards and and all was well.

Here's how the bag looked...

Then I spooned the icing into the bag and off we went...

To create a rose you ice from the centre outwards in a swirl. It's as simple as that.

Here they are!

These cupcakes look impressive but were surprisingly simple to make and were a fantastic addition to my summer tea party.

And the taste? The almond sponge was as light as a feather and contrasted wonderfully with the pocket of rich sweet strawberry champagne jam that melted into the smooth vanilla buttercream. Perfect summer cakes. But really, these were so pretty, who could bare to bite into one? Turns out, everyone.

Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to make some more!