It's Cupcake O'Clock! Pimm's Cupcakes

This may or may not be the craziest frosting ever...certainly the craziest one I have ever made.  It is made up of four individual flavoured frostings, and so layering the piping bag is quite a feat in itself! Now bear with me while I tell you what the four flavours are; strawberry - yum! orange - not my favourite but I can bear with it! mint - we're getting a little bit out there now and wait for it ... cucumber! yes, cucumber frosting! I know what you're thinking - yuck! and that is what I was thinking too! but in a very weird way they just all work together.  I suppose it's the same way they all work in the actual Pimm's drink too, complimenting one another perfectly (or so I hear since I don't drink alcohol myself!).



So these cupcakes were the result of the baking day I had with some of my friends from uni months back that I've been telling you about for a while! They found and came up with the great idea to make Pimm's cupcakes! Well I think it was Katy's idea because our Irish friend Sarah had never heard of or tried Pimm's before and Katy thought that was a bit of a travesty that needed to be rectified! We kept a small portion of the batter back and made them just plain vanilla so that I could get to taste some of the deliciousness too! So if you don't like/drink alcohol you could do the same if you wanted to replicate these little beauties.



I've been waiting for so long to blog these because I wanted to post them when I felt like summer had officially arrived! Well it hasn't reached over 10 degrees at any point this past week here in Wales and there's been rain every day, I'm still wearing a coat so unfortunately summer definitely isn't here...but with the way things are going I don't know if it's ever planning to show it's face around here and these cupcakes were too cool not to be showcased so I caved.

I also felt like they would make a pretty fun bake for anyone celebrating the upcoming Queen's Jubilee since of course Pimm's is so quintessentially English! So I'm entering them into The Blogging Jubilee Baking Competition that is being run by Homemade By Fleur for a chance to win £100 of Amazon vouchers which are being provided by Appliances Online - just think of all the baking books you could buy with that prize! I'm excited with just the thought of it!

The girls especially loved getting stuck in to my massive box of sprinkles for decoration purposes! and we declared our baking day of fun a massive success.  I was definitely glad I had two helpers to bake up these cupcakes because I have a feeling by yourself making the four frostings would be a little time consuming but definitely worth it.  Don't skip out on any of the flavours, like cucumber, even though it seems odd I promise you it works! 

Pimm's Cupcakes:

Makes 24

From Good Food

250g golden caster sugar

250g margarine

250g self-raising flour

4 eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla bean paste or 2 tsp vanilla extract

120ml Pimm's

For the frosting:

800g icing sugar

500g butter

Strawberry: 16 Strawberries & 2 tbsp caster sugar

Cucumber: 60g cucumber, seeds removed & a drop of green food colouring

Orange: 1 orange, juice only & a drop of orange food colouring

Mint: 16 fresh mint leaves

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.  Line your baking tins with cupcake cases.

Whisk the eggs and sugar for at least 4 minutes with the whisk attachment of a free standing mixer and beat the air into the mix so it fluffs up.

Sieve the flour and baking powder and add it to the mixture a little at a time, alternating with chunks of butter, whisking the mixture each time to ensure a smooth texture.  When completely combined, mix in the vanilla and the Pimm's.

Fill the cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake for 15-20 minutes until they feel spongy and the tops have got some colour.

Leave in pans for 5 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

While they are in the oven, make a start on the frostings.

Mix up the icing sugar and butter to start with in a free standing mixer, do it in half batches so as not to completely cover your kitchen in icing sugar.  Once they are combined, mix for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.

Divide the frosting into four separate bowls.

Strawberry: Roughly chop the strawberries and put them in a pan along with the sugar stirring constantly. Once softened, mash gently with the back of a spoon and leave to soften a little more (about 2 minutes).  Pass the mixture through a sieve to remove the seeds.  Leave the mixture to cool, then mix into one portion of the frosting. (This made slightly more strawberry than was needed, so just add a little at a time until it gets to a stiff consistency...if you add it all the icing will be too runny to pipe).

Cucumber: Cut the skin off the cucumber, chop it into very fine pieces and mix into one portion of the frosting.  Add a small amount of green, keep it quite pale.  

Orange: Blend the juice and zest into one portion of the frosting, again go easy as adding too much depending on the size of the orange you juice may make it too runny.  Add a small amount of orange food colouring to give it a pale orange colour.

Mint: Chop very finely and add to the frosting.  You can add green colouring if you want but we opted to keep ours the natural green that the mint leaves had made it.

To pipe: Place a large piping bag with an open star nozzle in a tall glass, spreading the top of the bag over the top of the glass.  Using a teaspoon, take a scoop of one of the frostings and gently push it down one side of the piping bag.  Repeating with the other 3 frostings until you have filled the bottom of the piping bag and the frosting is divided into quarters.  You can then use tablespoons to fill the rest of the piping bag with the rows of frostings.  Squeeze any air out of the bag and frost a little onto a piece of parchment paper first until all 4 colours start to swirl together.  Pipe your swirls on your cupcakes.

Finish with fresh slices of orange, cucumber, mint or strawberry or just for fun - with some sprinkles! 

Eat and enjoy!