Cranachan cupcakes ftw

After the success of my chocolate cherry cupcakes (made before the birth of this blog) I wanted to try creating my own cupcake recipes more.  The thought of taking familiar desserts and puddings and making cupcakes out of them is a concept that appeals to me...and what better dessert than a cranachan triffle!

For the cake

• 125g unsalted butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 125g self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 125g raspberries (I used frozen, just as good)

For the icing

• tub of mascarpone cheese
• 100 ml of double cream
• 100g icing sugar
• 4 tbsp of whiskey

For the hazelnut crunch

• 100g hazelnuts, rougly chopped
• 140g unsalted butter
• 4 tbsp honey
• 200g oats
• 100g caster sugar
• 85g plain flour

For the raspberry sauce

• 125g raspberries (frozen ftw)
• 40g caster sugar

To make the cakes

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC and line the holes of the miffin tin with muffin cases.
2. Add the butter, caster sugar and vanilla extract together and cream together until light and fluffy (about 7 minutes).
3. Add the eggs, one by one, and mix for 2 minutes.
4. Mix the flour and baking powder together in a separate bowl, then add to the wet mix and mix until incorperated (less mixing is more).  Add the raspberries and give a final stir.
5. Divide the mix between the cases and bake for 25 minutes and then leave to cool.

To make the frosting

1. Whisk the mascarpone cheese with half of the cream.
2. Add the icing sugar and continue to whisk.
3. If frosting is too thick add more cream, if not thick enough add more icing sugar.
4. Add whiskey.

To make the hazelnut crunch

1. Heat oven to 180oC.
2.  Melt the butter and honey in a large saucepan, then stir in the other ingredients until everything is well coated. Spread out on a baking sheet, then bake for 20 mins until crisp. Cool, crumble into pieces, then set aside.

To make the raspberry sauce

1. Heat raspberries and sugar (slowly and to taste) in a pan until combined.

Combine all of the above and you get this!

For an extra raspberry touch you can pipe some raspberry sauce INTO the cake, it's pretty cool :)