A lot of my baking ideas come from food and drink I might fancy on a particular day. It has been absolutely gorgeous today, hot and sunny with a light breeze (the warmest in ages, only had to wait to end of September for summer!) Anyway its the type of weather that makes me want to be in a beer garden with the girls and a nice glass of chilled Rose wine, so what a perfect day to try make rose cupcakes. Here's what I did;
I preheated the oven to 170 degrees (fan oven)
I chopped half a punnet of strawberries (about 200g). I sliced 12 larger pieces for decoration then put to one side. I chopped the rest into generous chunks.
I then put the strawberries for decoration in a wine glass and covered with Rose wine. I left them in the fridge to chill.
I measured 150ml of rose wine and added to the chopped strawberries to soak.
I then made my usual cupcake recipe. I added the butter (240g) and caster sugar (240g) to a food processor (I always use a food processor because I’m lazy but you can do it by hand), and mixed until creamy.
I then mixed in 4 eggs and 1tsp baking powder with a little flour.
I added the soaked strawberries and Rose wine to the mix. It split a little but smelt amazing!
I removed the bowl from the food processor and gently folded in self raising flour (240g) to keep the air in.
I then spooned the mixture in to pink cupcake cases filling them almost to the top
I baked the cakes for 20 minutes then took them out the oven and left to cool.
Rose Buttercream
I left a block of 250g of butter to reach room temperature and then creamed in my food processor.
I gradually added 500g of icing sugar and the glass of rose the decorative strawberries had been soaking in (I took out the strawberries first).
I then filled a piping bag with the butter cream and used a medium sized rose nozzle. Starting from the inside I swirled the buttercream around to create a rose effect. I then placed a wine soaked strawberry to hide the join from the piping.
They smelt gorgeous when they came out of the oven. You can really smell the rose wine and you can definitely taste it in the cupcake. Its a really subtle flavour then you get a bite of a soaked strawberry and its really strong so yummy! The frosting is slightly more loose then I usually like but I wanted it to taste quite strongly of wine and its still firm enough to pipe with. Next time I make them I might try using sparkling Rose and maybe try baking a full soaked strawberry in each cupcake or at least adding more chopped pieces as there wasn't enough for my liking. These cupcakes are absolutely perfect for a summer party to go with a glass of Rose of course J.
