Date and walnut cupcakes recipe

Love a bit of traditional date and walnut cake with your cuppa? Then you'll love these date and walnut cupcakes with a big dollop of delicious cream cheese frosting, made by our cupcake queen Victoria Threader

Ingredients

• 120g self-raising flour
• 120g plain flour
• 10g cornflour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 125g butter
• 1 medium egg
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 100g light brown sugar
• 100ml of golden syrup
• 100g bag of walnuts ( 75g to be chopped and 25g left aside to decorate)
• 200g stoned dates
• 250ml water

For the cream cheese icing

• 150g full-fat soft cream cheese
• 150g icing sugar
• Few drops of vanilla extract

Method

1. To make this cupcake recipe (opens in new tab), preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3 and line a 12-hole muffin tray with cake cases.
2. Chop the walnuts and dates into 1cm square pieces.
3. In a small saucepan heat the water, chopped dates, golden syrup and butter until boiling point then leave to one side to cool.
4. Into a large mixing bowl sieve the flours, spice, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and add the chopped walnuts.
5. Lightly beat the egg and when the date mix has cooled fold the egg and date mix into the flours until just combined.
6. Divide the mixture between the 12 cases and bake for 30 minutes (depending on your oven).
7. To make the icing, add the ingredients to a mixing bowl and beat with a whisk until smooth and shiny, not for too long though or it will become watery.
8. When the cakes are ready remove them from the oven and allow to cool before icing, using a teaspoon to pop a dollop of icing on the top of each cupcake. Or for a perfect circle of icing, use a Wilton 2A or other round-tip nozzle attached to a piping bag to pipe a circle onto the centre of each cake.
9. Finish off by decorating with walnuts and dates

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