It’s an exciting weekend of sport here in the UK; Wimbledon finals, the cricket world cup finals and the group stages of the netball world cup.  I decided we needed some special snacks to celebrate.  Celebrating English summer and the traditions of strawberries and cream – I decided we needed cupcakes. With champagne. These cupcakes are easy to make.  And they look fancy. 

I digress here – England are in the cricket world cup finals for the first time since 1992.  They were beaten by the mighty sporting nation of Pakistan in 1992.  The English have a history of inventing games, teaching the colonies how to play them and then routinely getting thumped by the opposition. Contemplate the history of association rules football (soccer to you Americans), rugby and cricket.  The Cricket World Cup final is a big deal and one of the world’s most viewed sporting events.

Yes, I love cricket.   How can you not love a game that stops for lunch and tea?  Where they sing a hymn (Jerusalem) as play starts? And has hard core fans known as the Barmy Army? It is an epic sport.   It can look incomprehensible but I can take anyone to a one day or T20 cricket match and you will leave with a basic understanding of the game. 

Back to the cupcakes.

I understand being time poor and so I’ve included tips on how to simplify the recipe without sacrificing taste.  I’m retired – I have time to strain strawberry puree through cheesecloth, make icing and decide it’s not pink enough so make some more, pipe the second batch of icing onto the cupcakes and then cut strawberries into decorations. None of that improves the taste – it’s for Instagram life, not real life.  

I used a Camel Valley sparkling rose pinot noir to make my cupcakes.  Camel Valley is a winery in Cornwall, here’s their website. Part of my Brexit preparations is to drink more English wine.  But I knew that the recipe doesn’t use that much so we were going to drink the rest.  Life is too short to drink bad wine.  You don’t need expensive sparkling wine for this – something that you’re happy to drink – rose or blanc – will be fine.

It’s strawberry season so bake away!

Recipe

Ingredients

Cupcakes

80 g unsalted butter (softened)

280 g caster sugar

240 g plain flour

2 large eggs

1 tbsp. baking powder

140 ml whole or semi skim milk

37.5 cm (half bottle) of sparkling wine of your choice

Buttercream icing

• 170 grams unsalted butter (softened)
• 250 grams powdered sugar, sifted
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• Pinch of salt
• 150 grams of strawberries to make strawberry puree or  3-4 tablespoons strawberry jam
• 6 -12 smaller strawberries for decoration

Instructions

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Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 190C (375F), Gas Mark 5. Line a 12 cup muffin tin.
2. Sift together the flour and the baking powder.  You want to make sure the baking powder is well distributed in the flour.  Then beat the flour mixture together with the butter and caster sugar. It should look like bread crumbs.
3. Whisk the eggs and milk together in a separate bowl or a jug. With the mixer running, slowly add this to the to the mixture. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl and the bottom to ensure all the ingredients are well incorporated. 
4. Pour or spoon the mixture into the muffin tin so they are two thirds full.  I like to use my trigger ice cream scoop to do this – it’s one generous scoop per tin.
5. Bake in oven for 18-20 mins or until the sponge feels springy.  Remove from the oven and allow to rest for about 10 minutes.
6. Tip the cupcakes out of the tin onto a rack.  Time to open the champagne. Poke each cupcake several times with a toothpick or cocktail stick.  Pour a tablespoon of the champagne carefully over each cupcake.  Allow it to soak in.  Contemplate if you want to add a bit more and do so. (this could depend on if you’re giving them to children).  I have a very cute tiny funnel that I use for this step but it’s a completely over the top baking gadget that no one (even me) really needs.

Pour yourself a glass of champagne, put your feet up and rest before you move on to making the icing and decorating. 

Icing

1. Chop up the 150 grams of strawberries and whiz them in a small food processor or the blender.  I strain the puree through a layer of cheesecloth so that I have very few seeds in the icing but this is NOT necessary. 
2. Beat together the butter and the icing sugar.  Add the pinch of salt and the vanilla.  
3. Beat in enough puree – 3 to 4 tablespoons to make smooth and firm buttercream.  If you’re using jam, add 2 tablespoons and then enough milk (1 tablespoon at a time) until you reach a good consistency. 
4. I pipe the icing on the cupcakes.  If you want to develop your piping skills, here’s a good video on Youtube.  Buttercream is incredibly forgiving to practice piping. 
5. If you’re not piping, apply icing with a butter knife or an offset spatula.
6. Cut the strawberries into a decorative shape you like.  I do a number of parallel cuts that leave the stem end intact but allow you to fan out the sections.  A small single berry or an aesthetically pleasing single slice of strawberry is also great.  Or back to the simple, just serve the strawberries with the cupcakes. 

Happy baking and enjoy this celebration of English summer.

Tags: champagnecupcakeseasy cupcakesstrawberrystrawberry champagne cupcakesstrawberry cupcakes