Yummy raspberry Eton mess cupcakes

I’m so jealous of my sister, because she’s studying wildlife conservation at uni, for the whole of August she has decided to go to Zimbabwe to work with elephants and rhinos… *sigh* i wish i was in a hot country- but alas, rainy cold England for me.

But never mind, that means there’s all the more baking to be done! And this week calls for a spin on a delicious classic dessert- Eton mess. I love the combination of crispy-on-the-outside and chewy-on-the-inside meringue with tangy raspberries, so why not put them in a cupcake?  

There aren’t any bits of meringue in the cake, as this makes it a bit soggy and it just doesn’t work as well, so it’s much nicer to have it with the icing, where it will stay nice and perfectly-textured!

Instead of using food colouring, I just puree some raspberries then sieve them, and add this to the buttercream, which gives my favouritist pink colour and a nice raspberry taste to the icing too!

I may have cheated and used shop-bought meringues for the topping, because i was short for time, however you could make your own, but you would only need 1 little one really.

INGREDIENTS:

FOR THE CAKES:

• 150g Butter (unsalted) softened
• 150g golden caster sugar 
• 3 large eggs
• 150g Self-raising white flour 
• 100g Raspberries frozen

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM:

• 150g butter
• 300g icing sugar
• 50g raspberries

• 1 small meringue
• 12 raspberries

METHOD:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a twelve hole muffin tin with cupcake cases.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs one by one, adding in a spoonful of flour with each one.
3. Add the rest of the flour and fold in.
4. Fold in the raspberries, then spoon evenly into the cupcake cases.
5. Bake for 25 minutes until golden, then leave to cool.
6. While they’re cooling, puree the raspberries, then push them through a sieve to get rid of any little seeds.
7. Cream the butter and icing sugar together in a food processor then add the raspberry puree.
8. Crush the meringue in a food bag.
9. When the cakes are cooled, pipe the icing on, sprinkle over some crushed meringue and add a raspberry, and Voila- YUMMY.