Rum and raisin cupcakes recipe

Method

• 1. The night before, chop up the raisins into chunks, place them in a bowl with the dark rum and leave to soak over night.
  2. Preheat your oven to 160°C/320°F/Gas Mark 3 and place 10 cases in a muffin tin.
  3. Sift together the flour, cornflour and cinnamon.
  4. Beat the sugar and butter with the vanilla essence until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).
  5. Add 1 egg, 1 third of the sifted flour mix and a splash of milk and beat until just combined. Repeat until all the ingredients are combined. Fold in the rum-soaked raisins, keeping 30g of raisins and a bit of juice back to decorate.
  6. Divide the batter between the cases and bake for 20-25 minutes depending on your oven.
  7. Cool in the tins for 10 minutes before moving the cakes to a wire cooling rack.

  To make the cream topping

  1. Add the cream and icing sugar to a large mixing bowl, then beat for 2 minutes with an electric whisk until smooth and firm enough to pipe. Don’t whisk too long or the cream will be too thick to pipe and look lumpy.

  Piping a swirl

  1. Attach the nozzle to the piping bag and place in a tall glass, pulling the bag down around the glass. Fill the bag 2/3 full with the cream topping and twist at the top of the bag to close.
  2. To pipe a swirl, apply pressure to the top of the bag and pipe a star shape in the middle of the cake. Release the pressure and pull up quickly.
  3. Then, start at the outside edge of the cake and pipe around the star and build up into a swirl. When you reach the end of the swirl press down slightly, release the pressure and pull up quickly.
  4. Add the chopped raisins and a bit of juice to the tops to decorate.