Recipe by Claire Ferrandi
Rose and vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese icing
Ingredients
- Rose and vanilla cupcakes
- 100g butter, softened
- 120g castor sugar
- 2 eggs
- 5ml (1 tsp) rose water
- pinch salt
- 150g self-raising flour
- 40ml milk
- Icing
- 250g cream cheese, softened
- 150g butter, softened
- 150g icing sugar, sifted
- seeds of 2 vanilla pods
- pinch salt
- fresh rosebuds and petals, to decorate
- fresh strawberries, some whole, some halved and others chopped, to decorate
Instructions
To make the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 160°C. Place 8 cupcake holders in the wells of a cupcake tin.
Cream the butter and caster sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time until fully incorporated. Beat in the rose water and salt.
Gently fold in the flour until incorporated. Stir in the milk until well combined. If the mixture seems a little thick, add a little more milk to create a dropping consistency.
Divide the mixture among the cupcake holders (each holder should be around 1/3 full).
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean. Allow to cool on a wire rack, 2 hours.
To make the icing, beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add half the icing sugar and beat until fully incorporated, then add the remaining icing sugar, vanilla seeds and salt and beat until fluffy, 3 minutes.
Once the cupcakes are cool, ice their tops using a pallet knife, leaving some texture. Top some cupcakes with rose petals and rosebuds, and others with fresh strawberry pieces.
