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Super cute and super sweet, these vanilla and raspberry cupcakes are topped with a home-made marshmallow that’s ridiculously easy to make (and soooo yummy!). Perfect for a girly afternoon tea or Sweet 16^th Birthday Party, they look fantastic grouped together on the table or a cupcake stand. ~Mandy Wrangles

 

 

First up, we’ll start with the marshmallows.

What you’ll need:

3 cups of sugar

2 tablespoons of gelatine

1 and a half cups of boiling water.

Vanilla essence

Food colouring

 

 

How it’s done:

Dissolve the gelatine into a bowl with the boiling water. You might have to help it melt by squishing with the back of a spoon.

 

In a large bowl, place the three cups of sugar. Add the water/gelatine mix to it and beat with an electric mixer until the mix is thick and creamy and the sugar is dissolved. 

 And after about 5 minutes, looks like this! Magic! 

 

It’s at this stage that you can add flavourings and colour. For this recipe, I used vanilla and a few drops of pink colouring to half the mix. Working fairly fast, spoon mixture into a piping bag with a wide round nozzle – be careful because it sets quickly and can be a bit sticky and messy! Onto a tray lined with baking paper, pipe coils of marshmallow.

Refrigerate for at least a couple of hours, or until cupcakes are baked and cooled.

 

Now, onto the cupcakes. This recipe makes around 24 cakes.

 

 What you’ll need:

200g softened, unsalted butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 cup of caster (superfine) sugar

2 and a half cups of self-raising flour

1 cup of milk

3 eggs

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries, mashed with the back of a spoon (I used frozen)

Vanilla buttercream icing. (You can make your own, but I’m all for cheating, so used a commercial brand – Betty Crocker)

 

How it’s done:

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees C. Line a muffin or cupcake tin with cases, or, you can use the self-structured ones shown in the pics. I like these because you can bake lots more at a time. My trays fit 25 cases.

 

With an electric mixer, whip the butter, sugar and vanilla until its light and fluffy. Then add your eggs, one at a time. The mixture can go a bit curdly at this stage, but don’t worry, it’ll all come back together. Then add half the flour, half the milk. Then more flour, more milk and keep mixing until it’s all combined. Add a couple of spoons of the mashed raspberries and give another quick mix – but only enough to swirl the raspberries in.

 

Fill your cupcake cases to about halfway. Add some more raspberry chunks if desired. This is a fairly thick and heavy mixture, so give the tops a bit of a smooth over. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until a skewer stuck in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely before decorating. (pic of cooked, undecorated cakes?)

 

Once cakes are cool, pull your marshmallows out of the fridge and roll them in icing sugar, or a mix of icing sugar and coloured decorator sugar. Try not to eat too many before they go on the cakes! With a piping bag and the same large nozzle as used earlier, pipe a round circle of vanilla buttercream around the edge of the cake. Add your marshmallow on top, and you’re done!

 

Hint: When making cupcakes for a special occasion, I find it really effective to use cupcake cases that match your colour theme, or, as you can see in these pics, two slightly different cases. It’ll make all the difference for the table display.

 

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