Raspberry Lemonade Cupcakes

When life gives you lemons (and raspberries) make (raspberry) lemonade (cupcakes)!

When trying to develop recipes that fit in with the seasons I rack my brains for flavour inspirations. Today is the turn of raspberry lemonade, one of my favourite summer time drinks! I adore this stuff in the summer, its just the perfect blend of sweet and sharp but it has to be served straight from the fridge as it tends to be too bitter when left out for a long time. I love still lemonade, it has a much sharper taste, the kind that makes your face scrunch up, but i prefer it to fizzy lemonade as it has a deeper flavour. So I thought to myself why not take my all time summer essential drink and turn it into cupcakes?

I wanted to make the cupcakes look summery, so I made the frosting with fresh raspberries to get a sweet baby pink colour as well as giving them the raspberry flavour needed. I then used freeze dried raspberries to sprinkle on top to give them extra vibrancy and flavour! Ive never seen these before so when I saw them in Waitrose I picked them up immediately to try them out. I love finding new and unusual things to bake with so these caught my beady baking eye.  I think they look great on top of these cupcakes and I also think they would be great in chocolate slaps or sprinkled on top of chocolate brownies! For the lemonade part, the cupcakes are made with still lemonade and lemon zest. The still lemonade adds a real depth of flavour, combine that with the lemon zest and you've got a perfectly perfect lemon cupcake! 

Practically perfect in every way... 

Ingredients

Cupcakes (12) 

150g Self raising flour 

125g Caster sugar 

125g Butter 

2 Eggs

¼  Tsp Bi carbonate of soda

¼  Tsp Baking powder 

Zest of one lemon 

5 Tbsp Still lemonade 

1 Tbsp Vanilla yogurt 

Frosting

200g Butter (softened) 

360g Icing Sugar 

1 Tbsp Vanilla yogurt 

Handful of fresh raspberries 

Freeze dried raspberries for decoration (optional) 

* Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, gas mark 4 and line a cupcake tin with cases. 

I love cupcake recipes where you can add all of the ingredients in at once and leave it to mix for a couple of minutes so for this recipe we are going to do exactly that. Add the flour, sugar, butter, eggs, bi-carb and baking powder into a large mixing bowl or the bowl for an electric mixer, beat together for 3-4 minutes until all the ingredients are combined, light and fluffy. 

Add in the lemon zest, lemonade and vanilla yogurt and beat together for two minutes on a low speed to make sure they are well incorporated into the mixture. I've added vanilla yogurt to make the cupcakes extra fluffy and to give them a sweeter taste. Once everything is well combined spoon out the mixture equally into the cupcake cases, filling each one three quarters of the way full. Place in the oven for 15-18 minutes until golden brown and springy to touch - do the trusty skewer trick to make sure they are cooked all the way through. Once cooked take out of the oven and leave them to cool for 5 minutes in the cupcake tray before transferring them onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

To make the frosting place the butter into a mixing bowl and beat for five minutes until soft and fluffy. Add in half of the icing sugar and beat slowly for one minute before turning up the speed for three minutes until well combined and it starts to resemble frosting. Add in the vanilla yogurt and beat for one minute. Add in the fresh raspberries and beat again for three minutes, don't worry if it starts to look like the mixture has split as you will be adding the rest of the icing sugar in. Once the raspberries have broken up, add in the remaining icing sugar and beat together for a further five minutes until the frosting starts to stiffen. If the frosting still looks split, add in a few table spoons of icing sugar until you get the desired consistency. 

Spoon the frosting into a disposable piping bag with a star nozzle attached and place in the fridge for 10 minutes to allow the frosting to harden slightly. When the cupcakes have cooled completely take the piping bag out of the fridge. Starting at one end of the cupcake swirl the piping bag around in circular motions bringing it up to the top and pull away gently. If you want to add more height to your cupcake swirl the frosting around a few more times before pulling away at the top. 

Once all the cupcakes have frosting on them finish with a sprinkle of freeze dried raspberries and enjoy! I'd love to know what drinks you like to drink in summer?