Madhouse recipe : Orange & Cranberry Cupcakes

Rachel's recently sent me through some vouchers for their delicious yogurts, along with a festive recipe to try out for Orange & Cranberry Cupcakes. In the top photo is their version.

And here's my attempt ! I purposely left some without icing for the adults because we preferred the more natural, less sweet flavour of the cranberries. Both types disappeared quickly though and I was really surprised by the texture of the icing made with yogurt so I'll definitely be experimenting more with that.

Orange & Cranberry Cupcakes

Makes 12

Ingredients:

225g margarine or butter, softened

225g caster sugar

225g self raising flour

3 large eggs

100g Rachel’s low fat vanilla yogurt

70g dried cranberries, chopped

Orange zest, juice of ½ orange

To Decorate:

250g icing sugar

30g Rachel’s low fat vanilla yogurt

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 190C/Fan 170C/Gas Mark 5. Arrange paper cases in muffin or bun tins. Place the margarine, sugar, flour and eggs into a large mixing bowl and beat for about two minutes until smooth, light and fluffy. 

Fold in the yogurt, dried cranberries, orange zest and juice. 

Divide the mixture between the cases so that they are half filled and bake for 12 – 15 minutes, until golden. (I overfilled mine slightly so I left them for a bit longer, closer to 20 minutes.)

Cool on a wire rack. 

As expected, mine splurged out a bit during the cooking process. The tops went beautifully crispy and buttery while the bottoms were light and fluffy but broke apart slightly when taking them out of the silicon muffin trays. I decided to turn them upside down where the crispy, firm tops worked as the perfect base.

2. To make the icing, mix the icing sugar with the yogurt and mix until smooth. Tip: the icing should be runny and flow. Now, I usually make butter icing or runny drizzle icing using water and icing sugar (or lemon juice and icing sugar) so I was intrigued to see how it would work with yogurt. I was expecting a really runny icing that wouldn't set but I ended up with the texture of fondant icing. I could have made it runnier by adding more yogurt or a splash of water but I actually really liked the firmer texture which reminded me of fondant fancies. 

 

3. Decorate each cake with a blob of icing and spread with a palette knife. Alternatively, leave to run to the edges of the paper case. Leave the icing to set. (I added a blob and topped with an extra dried cranberry, leaving some icing-free.)

4. The cakes will keep in an airtight container for up to four days. (Ummm you're joking right? These all disappeared within a couple of days !)

Disclosure : I received some vouchers from Rachel's for yogurts to try out the recipe.