Blueberry Crumble Cupcakes.

Hello again! Yes I know, yet another cupcake recipe for you. I promise I do do other things and don't just sit in my kitchen baking cupcakes all day, not everyday anyway. I do occasionally make other types of food too I swear, in fact I am actually making some homemade nachos, guacamole and salsa tomorrow. Yum. Does anyone else adore nachos? 

I really wanted to sell my cupcakes at farmers markets this summer to see if anybody would like and buy them but, I haven't had much luck with hearing any good news back from farmers markets yet so I don't think it looks likely now. As I mentioned in my blog post the other day, I'd really like to start up my own little baking business after University and to run a food truck so that I can travel around Cornwall selling my food. I thought that selling my cakes at farmers markets would be a good place to start just to see if people would actually like my food but, never mind. I'll just keep practicing my recipes for now and then hopefully one day CeeJay's Cupcake Cafe will be trundling along from beach to beach in Cornwall serving up ice cream and cakes. Who knows ay? Fingers crossed.  
Anyway, on to the cupcake recipe.

Recipe

For the Blueberry Cupcakes-

300g plain flour

155g caster sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. bicarbonate of soda

¼ tsp. salt

250ml whole milk

2 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla essence

85g unsalted butter, melted

50g fresh or frozen blueberries, plus extra for decorating

50g fresh or frozen raspberries

For the Crumble Topping-

50g plain flour

40g unsalted butter

30g soft light brown sugar

40g pecans, chopped

1 tsp. cinnamon

For the Blueberry Sauce-

70g blueberries

20ml water

60ml orange or lemon juice

40g caster sugar

20ml cold water

10g corn flour

1 tsp. almond extract

1 tsp. cinnamon

For the Lemon Curd Frosting-

250g icing sugar

80g butter

50g lemon curd

Method

1. First, prepare the crumble topping. In a bowl, rub the flour and butter together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the remaining ingredients and place enough (perhaps 1 tbsp.) of the crumble topping into a tray and bake in the oven for about ten minutes until golden and crunchy, ready to scatter on the tops of the cupcakes. Set the rest aside for later.

2. Next, prepare the cupcakes. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C and line a cupcake tin with 12 muffin cases. Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar and salt and place in a large bowl. Pour the milk into a jug, add the eggs and vanilla essence and mix together by hand.

3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and mixing slowly, pour in the egg and milk mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to catch every bit of the mixture, increase the speed to medium and continue beating until smooth. Then pour the melted butter in and beat again to incorporate.

4. Stir in the berries by hand, making sure they are evenly spread throughout the mixture, then spoon the batter into the muffin cases, filling each up to two-thirds full and sprinkle with the remaining crumble topping.

5. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the cupcakes are bronzed and bounce back when lightly pressed. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

6. While the cupcakes are cooling, prepare the blueberry sauce. In a saucepan over medium heat combine the blueberries, water, orange or lemon juice and sugar. Stir gently and bring to the boil.

7. In a cup, mix together the corn flour and cold water. Gently stir the corn flour mixture into the blueberries so as not to mash the berries. Simmer gently until thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon, about 3-4 minutes.Remove from the heat and stir in the almond extract and cinnamon. Allow to cool slightly.

8. Cut a hole out of the centre of each cupcake and fill with 1-2 tsp. blueberry sauce. 

9. Next, prepare the lemon frosting. Beat together the butter, icing sugar and lemon curd until fluffy, light and smooth and pipe onto the cupcakes using your favorite piping bag and nozzle. Finally, scatter the top of each cupcake with some of the crunchy crumble you prepared earlier and finish with a plump, juicy blueberry.    

Note. instead of using the lemon frosting on these cupcakes you can also top them with whipped double cream and they are delicious, like mini gateau's! Just whip up 600ml double cream and dollop away! 

I also forgot to say the other day but, McBusted were incredible! Oh I do love a good boyband. It was just so much fun and such a great show and all of the guys looked like they were having a great time which, was really lovely to see. They were all hilarious and Danny and Dougie were looking particularly gorgeous too which, was rather nice. Since finding out James spends some of his time living in Padstow I also seem to have become quite attracted to him which, gives me even more reason to trundle to Padstow selling my cakes all in the hope that James will one day fall in love with me and my cooking. It was fun to be able to dance and sing along to every song and at the end of the night I just wanted them to do it all over again. It was honestly one of the best concerts I've ever been to! I definitely need to start going to more concerts, it's always such an amazing atmosphere and really incredible and overwhelming when you see a band you really like.