ginger and chinese five spice cupcakes

My friend Sara-Jane is on the Great Australian Bake Off, so despite my usual reluctance to watch tv I wrote it in my diary, and Tuesday at 8pm found me watching commercial tv with ads and everything. 

This first episode included the challenge 'signature cupcake', which, who has a signature cupcake? If you have one, let me know, because I've never heard of anyone having a signature cupcake. Signature cake, sure (berry and dark chocolate double layer cake, thanks). But signature cupcake? 

So I made one up. And went shopping for ingredients at 10pm, after the show finished. 

Ginger and Chinese Five Spice Cupcakes with Lemon Icing

Someone referred to the ginger and chinese five spice biscuits I bake basically once a week as my 'signature cookies' about two weeks ago, and it's what my mind drifted to when I was considering what would be my signature cupcake. 

what you need:

photo stolen from SJ

2 heaped cups of SR flour

3/4 cups of brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

3 tbl ground ginger

2 tbl chinese 5 spice

3/4 cup milk

150g margarine

2 tbl light agave or golden syrup

2 chinese soup spoons of apple sauce

1 tsp vanilla essence

handful of crystallised ginger

for the icing

more crystallised ginger (not heaps)

300g icing sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

140g marg

what you do:

Oven: 190C

Melt together the margarine, sugar and golden syrup over a low heat. Allow to just melt, then cool a little, before adding in the milk and the vanilla essence. Follow this with the apple sauce and combine. Sift together the flour, baking powder, ginger and five spice. Mix into the liquid until just combined. 

Into lined/greased cupcake pans, spoon a base, and insert one piece of crystallised ginger (i make them smaller), then cover with more batter. Continue until you've got all your cupcakes. 

Bake for about 20 minutes, then allow to cool on a rack. 

Icing: beat together all the icing ingredients except for the crystallised ginger. When the cupcakes are cool, then ice. Chop up the ginger so it's tiny and sprinkle on top. 

merry cupcakes, fitzroy

Regular readers of my social media will probably already know that my cupcake heart belongs to Cupcake Central, run by the super awesome Sheryl, who helped my friends bring me cupcakes when I was living in China, who when I hint around vegan things (like Oreos) invents new flavours to accomodate it, and is generally really awesome and inspiring.

But I was in Fitzroy on Saturday, as I so often am, and thought I should give the newly opened all-vegan Merry Cupcakes a go.

Clockwise top left: the beet it (red velvet with beetroot); the wakey wakey (i think - coffee); strawberry fields forever; 'bruce banner' (zucchini and and banana).

I love vegan shops. Love love love them, so I'm automatically always excited. My favourites were the pop culture cupcakes (strawberry fields forever and bruce banner) - the strawberry one had a really fresh strawberry flavour, and dr banner was delicious (things I never thought I'd say). Apparently people often don't get those references, even though they're the best!

The beet it was a bit weirdly nutty, and the wakey wakey was fine but just a generic coffee cupcake. Would return though, 50% is still a pass and there's so many other flavours to sample; plus, service was lovely and friendly and helpful, and I'd like to try their coffee!

You can find their spring menu here. They're currently only just now moving in to gluten free cupcakes with one or two flavours.

Merry Cupcakes
261 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy
Closed Tuesdays

Get there on the 112 tram. I think there was a step up into the shop, service is at the counter.

you can't have these cupcakes (yet)

I went to a wedding at Scienceworks last week! Scienceworks is a pretty cool venue for a party, I had lots of fun taking photos and hanging out with the gauges and stuff.

Although the wedding was not vegan, and it was just a cocktails kind of party, I found that I was amply catered for. There was a vegan version of most of the little courses, and the person with the vego/vegan platter would always try to find me first so I got something, and that was all very lovely. And then, there were the cupcakes.



Ant's sister Cate, who is not actually a baker (though aspires to running a cupcakery + confectionary), made this amazing cupcake tower for the party. Here is what makes this cupcake tower so amazing, though. The level that I could eat was not, in fact, the bottom, plain chocolate (mudcake) cupcake layer. Oh no.

It was the blackforrest cupcake layer.



Basically, this was so amazing that I can't wait until she has an actual cupcake shop so I can eat this all the time. And try making it. And so other vegans I know can employ her to bake for their parties. This was SO GOOD.

Also, I love it so much when my non-vegan friends make sure that I am just as over-the-top catered for as everyone else.

mr nice guy neopolitan cupcakes

One of the new Mr Nice Guy cupcake flavours is neopolitana, so of course I raced out to eat it, and then failed to blog about it.



I really like this cupcake! The chocolate is good, and the strawberry icing is not too sweet or overwhelming, and the vanilla sets it all off nicely. I like it!

You can win a dozen Mr Nice Guy cupcakes via Beat magazine right now, and on the competition page you can also see my photo! The photo is fine, it is a shame the icing had gotten squished on the way home from Empire.

Previous Mr Nice Guy cupcakes in my mouth: jaffa + key west.

Other people eating the Neapolitan: Pip eating at New Day Rising.


Mr Nice Guy Cupcakes
Address: at a handy cafe (I go to Empire on Sydney Road)

red velvet cupcakes

I'd seen mentions of red velvet cupcakes around the place before, but until the cupcakes at Cupcake Central, I'd never had the opportunity to eat one. They were tasty (and I've eaten them several times since), but nothing AMAZING; I'd felt misled by the internets, which had proclaimed how amazing red velvet cupcakes were.

For fairness, I thought I would give baking them on my own a go, to keep on trying for what was supposed to be the greatest cupcake in the world.



I googled for a while, and checked out my books, for a variety of recipes. Eventually I used this recipe at Mac + Cheese. I ended up having to make two batches, because I didn't notice the tiny (but critical) 'makes about 22 cupcakes' and so made the full batter. This worked out ok, because the batter sat just fine in the fridge for a couple of days, and meant I kept myself in cupcakes for almost a week.

The batter was interesting. It was easy to mix, and fun to look at. It looks grossly awesome!



Baking was excellent - I didn't need to change anything about the timing or temperature, the cupcakes were just in and out with no adjustments, and the baking was perfect. A perfect rise, and very nice and soft.

The icing was a tad difficult, and I required assistance. The task was not aided by the hot weather, which led to the icing sliding off the cupcakes. I took to keeping them in the fridge.



I found the texture, especially after keeping them in the fridge, very pleasant. The cupcakes were firm but light, and the icing was perfect. The flavour of the cupcakes was a tad tart, I suspect this was due to the apple cider vinegar. Next time I might reduce the amount a little, and see how that changes the flavour, because I didn't enjoy that after taste, though I did enjoy the flavour of the eating.

Overall, a good experience! Not the world's greatest cupcake flavour by far, but delightful, and I would bake these again.

halloween cupcakes

Speaking of Halloween (as I was just yesterday), I went to a Halloween party and at the last minute I made some cupcakes, which were themed with my costume.



I didn't have time to do anything fancy with the decorating, because I arrived home at five and had to bake and ice the cupcakes, as well as finish making my costume, including painting my nails, before leaving at seven. So cardboard cutout bats it was! Actually I think they turned out quite well.

Shame about the cupcakes themselves, which were a bit dry because I converted a recipe to gluten-free and forgot to increase the liquids, but oh well! I will know better for next time.

Also: thanks to Aldi for lots of ridiculous lollies that just so happened to be vegan!

dangerously close cupcakes at cupcake central, hawthorn

Recently, due to a random conflation of circumstances, I started drinking coffee.

Also recently, as I blogged about previously, Cupcake Central opened near my office, and sells at least one type of vegan cupcake a day.

So every now and then, I drop by to pick up a coffee and/or a cupcake. They've got bonsoy going on, too, which is just the best.

I'm trying to restrict myself to one cupcake a week, but I will be honest, some weeks you just need more than one, and this was one of those weeks.



Monday I picked up a soy latte and a peanut butter and chocolate gluten-free and vegan cupcake. I took a mug from the office kitchen, because I don't have a keep cup, and they were a bit confused about me having a mug! But that was fine, and then it rained in my coffee on the way back to the office.

Fi has a post (to which I can't link, as LJ appears to be down) about the chocolate peanut butter cupcake, and how it was nothing special. I absolutely must disagree. I thought the peanut butter to chocolate ratio was just perfect, and the icing complemented it wonderfully. To work out who is right, and decide which cupcake is better (the peanut butter chocolate or the red velvet), we have decided that we have to adjourn to Cupcake Central and sample them both at the same time; however to do this Cupcake Central would have to make them both on the same day. Maybe if more people eat vegan cupcakes they will do this?



Last night I had to go to a work thing until 2030, so I allowed myself a consoling late afternoon cupcake (and then, later, a cone of poutine from Lord of the Fries). Available was the chocolate chocolate (gf), which is a good, serviceable cupcake.

I am really enjoying having Cupcake Central so close: I just wish they'd bake more than one vegan flavour per day, so I could have a choice!



previous visit.


Cupcake Central
Shop 7, 672
Glenferrie Road
Hawthorn

mister nice guy cupcakes

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, whilst at Empire I picked up two Mister Nice Guy cupcakes for later consumption.



I had previously tried a mini (I think) vanilla cupcake at the Puppy Farm Rally, and was totally underwhelmed. Danni came away going on about how awesome the Mister Nice Guy cupcakes were, and I just had to disagree because I had found it bland and uninspiring.

However, given they were right in my eye line throughout breakfast, and given how everyone had been so impressed by them, and given that they sold out at World Animal Day, I thought that I would give them a second chance. And I'm glad that I did!

I took home a jaffa cupcake (front) and the key west (rear). Empire also had plain chocolate in stock. Even though I know (via facebook) that they were the previous day's cupcakes, they were still delightfully soft and squishy. The key west had this wonderful combination of lime and coconut, with crisp toasted coconut on top, and I thought that this light cupcake was delicious, and would be the superior. However the jaffa cupcake was just as light and fluffy, with just the right amount of chocolate, and though I thought it could stand to have a hint more orange flavour the combination was still delightful.

Anyway, now I don't know which was my favourite! These cupcakes will surely just have to undergo further rigorous testing.

cupcake central, hawthorn

(please note: this post contains blurry photos)

On Thursday, I found out that this new cupcake place, recently opened near my office, sells a vegan cupcake! I wasn't at work again last week, so I then spent the whole weekend watching as what seemed like everyone in the world adventured over to try this vegan cupcake! My jealousy grew.

So today, even though we were full from our spud lunch, Emilly and I ventured through the rain for cupcakes.

There is only one vegan cupcake currently available at Cupcake Central: the red velvet cupcake.


i know it's blurry icing - it's focused on the cake!

I have never had a red velvet cupcake before, though I know that many people love them, so I can't really compare it to that. It was nice. I had been warned that it was a bit dry, but the icing helped with that, as I sort of mushed it in to the cake.

Speaking of mushy, whilst I try to open my mouth wide in order to fit the whole cake, icing and all, into my mouth, here is what Fi does:



SHE SQUISHES IT.

The cupcake was good, though it could be more flavoursome, but at $3.80 a cupcake, probably only an irregular treat. Which is good, as it's right beside the train station and I'd have to walk by it EVERY DAY.

I'm thinking of baking my own red velvet cupcakes so I have something with which to compare it.

Cupcake Central
Shop 7, 672
Glenferrie Road
Hawthorn

reloving vctotw with almond cupcakes

So, it turns out I really like baking.

And one afternoon I was cruising about the Australian vegan blogosphere and came across ML at Drossolaila baking the apricot glazed almond cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and I thought about them constantly for a couple of days. I think it was the photo, which tells you the importance of good photography!

So when I was inspired to do some baking a few days later, I knew exactly what I wanted to bake.



These were good! Not too difficult to make, though I had trouble with an ingredient or two and had to make substitutions. They held up to the ravages of time, and were still tasty three days later, which I like in a cupcake. And they looked cute! It didn't make as much batter as I thought it would, and they were very sweet, but I liked them. And it was nice to come back to VCTOTW, which I avoid for long stretches of time between failures or disappointments, and have something nice.

Maybe I will add dried apricot pieces to the batter next time, though that might make it over-apricoty.

They're in green pattycake papers because I baked them the day before the federal election, and I had hopes for the Australian Greens.

A++, would make again!

roasted nomliciousness at the perth squid house

When I was in Perth, my Mum was not the only person to cook for me! Towards the end of my sojourn in Perth, and a mere four hours after my good friend Dr G had returned from European Adventures, I meandered across the city to have dinner with Dr G, Gilli, Paul, Kandace and Rick, and sleep over the night. Sleepovers are the best!



We sat around and chatted for ages, before we sent Rick off to the kitchen to prepare a roasted feast, for which I had (in advance) declared my desire. Rick is an excellent roaster of noms, and on this occasion he was no less excellent than usual.



Our roasted feast featured potatoes, pumpkin, field mushrooms, and carrots, with some last minute peas for some extra colour. We also went old school, with some white bread and thick lashings of, well, in my case, nuttelex, but I believe in their cases some sort of dairy containing margarine.

I love a good roast, and the potatoes and pumpkin were perfect oh yeah. Coincidentally (or not, actually, it's just a good place for a story), it was Dr G who first introduced me to the joys of roasted field mushrooms just over a year ago. Since that initial introduction, I have not looked back, roasting field mushrooms with every roasting opportunity, though Dr G continues to make fun of me for always taking the stem off first (I find it tastier, as the stem can roll about in the pumpkin juices this way).



After a brief pause, we moved on to dessert. Kandace had modified a lemon and poppyseed recipe for her first attempt at vegan cupcakes, and I am pleased to report that these were a success. We ate these with mango sorbet and chocolate soya (the soya was from the Junction Icecreamery, which remains my favourite icecreamery ever). We conducted some tests to determine the exact proportions of icecream to cupcake necessary to get a hint of icecream flavour without overwhelming the cupcake, a task at which I think all of us succeeded. It was a pretty delicious taste combination.



Sleepovers! I highly recommend them. Also roasted noms.

orange and chocolate cupcakes

My parents and my sister came across from Perth for Chinese New Year (it's like Christmas, but longer, you know). I took the day off from FoE in order to go to pick them up from the airport, so with my morning free Danni and I first went to Ceres for brunch with Jo and Em, where we all had the vegan big breakfast (oh yeah). Following this, Danni and Jo decided to bake some cupcakes.



Upon collecting them from the airport, we returned to find these delicious cupcakes waiting! They were chocolate and orange, and were very delicious! Tangy and chocolatey, and the icing was perfect! With thanks to Em for her assistance in grating the chocolate.

blackberry cupcakes and strawberry cupcakes

For Tuesday's brunch, I made a whole lot of cupcakes. On Friday I'd picked up some strawberries and blackberries from the markets, unable to decide which sort of cupcakes I wanted to bake.

So I baked both, halving the batter in order to make six of each. It was awesome! Also they were gluten-free, and still light and fluffy (for the most part). Hooray!



various fruits in cupcakes

The soy flour is a new addition to my gf baking, and it worked a treat! Thanks to Johanna for the tip!

ingredients
2ish heaped cups of gluten free flour (plain; I used Orgrans)
2 tablespoons soy flour
half a cup of sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
80g nuttelex/vegan margarine (melted)
4 chinese soup spoons of apple sauce
three quarters of a cup of soy milk
50g blackberries
100g strawberries (diced)

method
Combine flours, sugar and baking powder together. Add in essence, nuttelex and applesauce, then gradually add soy milk, whilst stirring. As soon as thoroughly combined, half the mixture into two separate bowls.

Into one bowl, carefully mix the blackberries. Squish one blackberry carefully, in order to get some black berry juice in the mixture. Be careful not to break any other blackberries, as this will change the colour and flavour of the batter.

Into the other bowl, mix in the strawberries. Squish a strawberry in order to get some strawberry juice in there.

Spoon in to a twelve cupcake tray. Bake for 20 minutes at about 180C.

gf chocolate and jam cupcakes

I recently made a batch of gluten-free cupcakes for Kristy. This was Danni's great idea, but masterfully executed by me in a very warm kitchen on a very warm day. GF cupcakes aren't difficult, most non-GF recipes can be altered to be gluten-free, but I paid attention to the alterations that I made because it's not quite comparable.

When I'm GF baking, it tends to take me a little bit longer because I pause to check that every item I'm using is GF. This is because lots of things have hidden wheat, such as some baking cocoas and baking powders.



This photo is a cheat! I am using it to illustrate this post because I failed to take photos of the actual cupcakes I baked yesterday. Sorry! I swear they looked just like this! Only the tea towel was blue, not yellow. And I baked them in little foil cup cake cups so that I could put them all in a little basket.

Gluten-Free chocolate and jam cupcakes

For reference, this link is my usual recipe. Some of the changes are immediately noticeable. I use more liquid because the Orgrans GF flour is a lot drier than gluteny flour, and will crumble if there isn't more liquid. I use slightly more flour, because I have a lot of trouble getting GF flour to rise. And I don't use baking powder! SJ, who is my GF baking guru, told me long ago that some combined baking powders use wheat to bulk it up, so to ensure there's no risk, I tend to use a combination of cream of tartar and bicarb soda.

ingredients
2 heaped cups white plain GF flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 heaped cup cocoa (I use Nestle, even though Nestle kills babies, because it is the only cocoa I've so far found that is both GF and vegan)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
two thirds of a teaspoon of bicarbonate soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
100 gm melted nuttelex
4 heaped chinese soup spoons of apple sauce
1 and a quarter cup soy milk (please note that some soy milks are not suitable, so check the box)
3 tablespoons jam
1 cup chocolate bits
extra jam, to top

method
Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, bicarb and cream of tartar. Mix in vanilla essence, nuttelex and apple sauce. Slowly mix in milk, until the batter is thick. Add a little more milk if the batter seems too thick - it needs to be very smooth and of a nice liquid consistency, but don't worry if there are the occasional lumps. GF flour is quite clumpy.

Mix in the jam and the chocolate bits. Grease cupcake pan, and divide equally in to twelve cupcake moulds. Drop half a teaspoon of jam on to the top of each cupcake.

Bake 180C for 35ish minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

sultana cupcakes

I had an amazing mini fruitcake the other week, and I had some sultanas in the house, so it seemed like fate to try making sultana cake for the first time! I modified it to cupcakes though, to enable ease of taking them to work.

These ones sunk, because of complications with my oven, but they should work out ok.



sultana cupcakes

ingredients
1 cup sultanas
half a cup of water
150 grams of nuttelex or margarine
3 chinese soup spoons of apple sauce
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbl golden syrup
one and a half cups of self raising flour
half a cup of plain flour
1 cup caster sugar
quarter of a teaspoon of almond essence
1 tsp cinnamon

method
Bring the water to a simmer, and add the sultanas. Simmer, covered, for five or six minutes, then add the nuttelex and let it melt. In the meantime, beat together the apple sauce and sugar. Add the golden syrup to the hot sultanas, then remove from heat, and mix in the apple sauce and sugar mixture, as well as the almond essence. Sift together the baking powder, flour, and cinnamon, then add to the sultanas. Mix until just combined.

Divide between twelve cupcake cup things, greased or with paper, and bake at 180C for about twenty minutes, or until a skewer comes out moist but relatively clean.

lemon and passionfruit cupcakes

One of the things I really love about the office environment is the way people bring things in to share. About this time of year there's always a bag of oranges or lemons sitting on a table in the lunchroom, sometimes accompanied by a little smiley-face note.

I had a little bit of passionfruit pulp in the fridge, from a previous experiment, and thought I'd better use it up so on Sunday night I baked some lemon and passionfruit cupcakes, with lemon icing, for at-work snacking.



Lemon and Passionfruit Cupcakes

This is a modification on my lemon and poppyseed cupcakes.

ingredients
2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
80g melted nuttelex
4 chinese soup spoons applesauce
slightly more than half cup of soymilk
a whole lot of lemon rind
lemon juice from half a lemon
quarter cup of passionfruit pulp (including seeds)

method
Sift together flour and baking powder, then stir through the sugar and vanilla essence. Mix in the nuttelex, applesauce, and soymilk, until well-combined. Stir in the lemon rind, lemon juice, and passionfruit pulp, and mix through.

Divide into 12 cupcakes and bake 180C for 20 minutes.

And the icing: one heaped tablespoon of nuttelex, a squeeze of lemon juice, a tablespoon of lemon rind, and start mixing, adding icing sugar until you've got enough icing. Wait until the cupcakes are cool, then ice.

lemon and poppyseed cupcakes

Having taken quite a few lemons, I did not only bake the delicious lemon and passionfruit curd cake, I also baked some super delicious lemon and poppyseed cupcakes.



I used the same recipe I always use, because it has long stood me in good steed. And is delicious. D iced them, adding some lemon rind to it for a very delicious and beautiful icing job.

banana and walnut muffins

I had two softening bananas, just going brown, and half a cup of walnuts sitting around doing nothing, so on Monday afternoon I took a break from studying to bake some banana and walnut muffins. They were soft and pretty tasty. I also like to sub chocolate chips for the walnuts.



banana and walnut muffins

ingredients
one and a half cups of SR flour
half a cup of sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
50g nuttelex
3 chinese soup spoons of applesauce
2 shakes cinnamon
half a cup of chopped walnuts
three quarters ish of a cup of milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed

method
Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and sugar. Mix in the vanilla essence, apple sauce and nuttelex, then slowly pour in the soy milk. Add the walnuts and the mashed bananas, mix well but do not overmix.

Divide in to twelve greased muffin molds (or similar), and bake at 180C for about 20 minutes.

lamington cupcakes

Not only was yesterday the first day of Chinese New Year (YAY), but it was also Australia Day. I mostly did CNY things, but I did also bake some lamington cupcakes, because lamingtons are one of my favourite snacks ever, and one I've not had in years. I used to love buying them from the local bakery on the way to school every morning, if I was very lucky they'd have the ones with the chocolate sponge, they were fantastic. I also used to love the fundraising drives, where you'd order a box or five of delicious, soft lamingtons, and mum would always put at least a box in the freezer, to save for darker, less delicious days when there were no fresh lamingtons to be had.

I baked these as cupcakes because I wasn't sure how the recipe would hold up as a sponge cake, especially as I saw several vegan sponge recipes that were all "it will fall apart!" And it seemed to work for Carla a few weeks ago. They were satisfying, but I think I'm ready to give proper lamingtons a go, because they really do need to be six sides of deliciousness.




Lamington Cupcakes

ingredients
2 cup SR flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup castor sugar
3 chinese soup spoons applesauce
50gm or so of nuttelex
¾ish cup of milk

method
Cream together the sugar, applesauce and butter. Combine with sifted flourand baking powder. Slowly mix in the milk.

Divide in to twelve cupcakes, and bake at 180C for 17 minutes.

Leave to mostly cool. Whilst cupcakes are mostly warm but heading towards cooled, dip in chocolate mixture (leave to soak for thirty seconds to a minute), and coat in desiccated coconut. You may need to cool in the fridge for half an hour to solidify the chocolate, depending on the ambient temperature. In Perth yesterday it was pretty warm!

chocolate mixture
1 cup icing sugar
¼ish cup of boiling water
2 tbl cocoa powder

Mix together until suitably runny.


NOTE regarding the Chinese soup spoons: these are perfect for egg substitution, I tend to use one overflowing spoon of applesauce per egg in a biscuit and cake recipies. They're something like a dollar from your local Chinese grocer, or use a soupspoon:tablespoon with a ratio of 1:1.5

(white) chocolate and jam cupcakes

D was off to the cricket today, and I wanted to bake some cupcakes for an in-the-stand snack. I was considering something from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, but every recipe I picked contained some ingredient that I didn't have. So I made this up instead. It was super delicious, the jam starts to sink in, and I have been told D's mum was sad that she only got two!



(White) Chocolate and Jam Cupcakes

ingredients
2 cups white self-raising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
100 gm melted nuttelex
4 chinese soup spoons of apple sauce
1 cup soy milk
2 tablespoons jam
1 cup white chocolate bits
extra jam, to top

method
Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, and baking powder. Mix in vanilla essence, nuttelex and apple sauce. Slowly mix in soy milk, until the batter is thick. Add a little more soy milk if the batter seems too thick. Mix in the jam and the white chocolate bits. Grease cupcake pan, and divide equally in to twelve cupcake moulds. Drop half a teaspoon of jam on to the top of each cupcake.

Bake 180C for 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.