Mary Berry's vanilla cupcakes with swirly icing recipe
The swirled, two-toned icing makes Mary Berry's vanilla cupcakes really distinctive, and you can achieve the effect using a regular piping bag. Make them even more special by experimenting with the huge range of coloured and patterned paper cases and sprinkles available.
Just note that it's easy to make the colour of the icing too strong. To prevent putting in too much edible colouring, use a cocktail stick to add a drop at a time until you have the shade that you like. Instead of using a regular piping bag, you can also buy dual-compartment piping bags, which automatically separate the two colours, allowing you to pipe them at the same time in a similar way.
This recipe makes 12 cupcakes. Per serving: calories: 465; saturated fat: 16g; unsaturated fat: 10g.
loveFOOD recommends: get kitted up with Lakeland's excellent duo colour icing set and sprinkle selection.
Ingredients
- 175 g butter (room temperature), cut into large pieces
- 175 g self-raising flour
- 175 g caster sugar
- 0.5 tsp baking powder
- 3 large eggs
- 0.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 175 g butter (room temperature), cut into large pieces
- 0.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 –3 tbsp milk
- 350 g icing sugar, sifted
- 1 –3 drops pink edible colouring
- 1 cup edible pink hearts or other sprinkles
Details
- Cuisine: British
- Recipe Type: Cake
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 25 mins
- Cooking Time: 25 mins
- Serves: 12
Step-by-step
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cupcake or muffin cases.
- Put all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk or a wooden spoon until smooth and evenly mixed. Divide the mixture evenly between the paper cases.
- Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and firm on top. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- Make the icing: put the butter, vanilla extract, 2 tablespoons of the milk, and half the icing sugar in a large bowl and beat until smooth. Beat in the remaining icing sugar, and pour in the rest of the milk if needed to make the icing the right consistency.
- Put half of the icing into another bowl and colour it pale pink with the edible colouring. Carefully spoon this down one side of a piping bag fitted with a No. 8 star nozzle, then spoon the non-coloured icing down the other side of the bag. Twist the end of the bag to seal the icing in.
- Pipe swirls of the icing on top of each cupcake. Scatter with the edible pink hearts, or other sprinkles, to decorate.
This recipe is from Mary Berry's Cookery Course (published by DK, £25, dk.com).
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