Raspberry Clouds

Well, if you have been reading my blog then you know about my lemonade cake challenge. My offering is a raspberry&cloudy lemonade cupcake. I've named it Raspberry Cloud not just because of the fact that it has raspberries and cloudy lemonade in it, its because the batter is so light and fluffy its like having a lump of cloud in your mouth. Sooo yum! I'm so pleased with how they turned out and they are just the ultimate girly looking cupcake, so much so that I just had to stick a My Little Pony in the pictures; just had to...

makes approximately 26 cupcakes:

for the sponge:

• 2 cups of cloudy lemonade
• 3 cups of plain flour
• 1tbsp baking powder
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/3 tsp salt
• zest of 1 lemon
• 100g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 cup of fresh raspberries
• 1 1/4 cups of caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 3/4 cup of butter milk

for the frosting

• 500g of cream cheese
• 3 tbsp of butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups of icing sugar
• zest of 1 lemon

optional extras

• lemon rings
• raspberries to decorate

1. first off, get you oven warming to 190'c and then line your cupcake tray with cupcake cases
2. next you need to start reducing your cloudy lemonade. put 2 cups of lemonade in a small pan and heat it till its bubbling. you want to keep it bubbling away slowly for around 20 minutes until it has more or less reduced by half and looks the tiniest bit thicker, it seams to ever so slightly coat the back of a spoon. when the syrups reduced, grate in the zest of 1 lemon and pop it to a side to cool off
3. while your lemonade is reducing you can be making your batter. take your butter and sugar and cream them together
4. sift together (twice please!) the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt
5. in a separate bowl or jug whisk together your eggs and milk and then your cooled lemonade syrup
6. in thirds, combine your egg mix and your dry flour mix into the butter. doing it in little stages helps to stop the milk and butter and eggs splitting
7. now take your cup of raspberries and pass them through a sieve into your batter. the easiest way of doing this i think, is to press them into the sieve with a spatular and this catches all the seeds in the sieve 
8. give the batter another mix to combine the raspberry puree and divide it between your cupcake cases. bake them for between 18-22 minutes depending on your oven. when they are finished baking, remove them from the oven and leave in the pan to cool for 10 minutes, after this remove them to a wire rack to cool fully
9. to make the frosting, cream your butter till it is as soft as you can get it and then mix this into your cream cheese and lemonade
10. sift in your icing sugar (at low level to reduce a mass cloud of icing dust) and then zest in your lemon. give it all a good stir together and you have your frosting
11. when the cupcakes are completely cool, serve them up with a dollop of frosting and a decorative little raspberry to top it off

xoxox