'Using Up Stuff' Cupcakes

I had oranges in the fruit bowl and blackberries in the fridge. I could have just eaten then as they were, but where's the fun in that?

So I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days recipe book and iced half with orange buttercream frosting and the other, yep, you guessed it, with blackberry buttercream frosting.

I started off with a few spare oranges and a small punnet of blackberries, and have ended up with over a dozen delicious cupcakes...magic!

Ingredients:

80g butter, softened
280g caster sugar
200g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
240ml whole milk
2 eggs

Let's get making...

Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark5 and line a muffin tin with muffin cases.

1. Beat together the butter, sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder and the salt until it look like little crumbs.
2. Whisk the milk and eggs together in a jug and add three quarters of this to the dry mixture. Beat slowly to begin with and then as the ingredients begin to combine, crank it up and mix until everything is nice and smooth. Pour in the remaining milk mixture and continue mixing until everything is smooth again.
3. Fill your muffin cases two thirds full and bake for 18-20 minutes.

To make the butter frosting, take 75g of softened butter and beat until fluffy. Slowly add 250g of icing sugar and combine. Add two tablespoons of milk and one teaspoon of vanilla and another 250g of icing sugar. Beat until well combined and if needed, add up to two more tablespoons of milk.

I then divided the frosting into two bowls. Into one I add the grated zest of one orange and into the other, a punnet (150g) of blackberries. Although, be sure to save 6 of the best looking blackberries to put on top of your yummy chocolate and blackberry cupcakes, once they have cooled and are iced.