These hot cross bun cupcakes are a perfect hybrid of the flavours of a hot cross bun with a soft, spongy cake.
Makes 12 cupcakes
Ingredients
2 duck eggs or 3 large chicken eggs
90ml buttermilk
185g butter
Zest of 1 orange
185g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
70g almond meal
185g light brown sugar, lightly packed
2 teaspoons mixed spice
120g sultanas
1 tablespoon apricot jam or marmalade
For the icing:
60g cream cheese
40g butter
60g icing sugar
Zest of 1/2 orange
Equipment:
Cupcake tin
12 cupcake cases
Piping bag
Plain nozzle
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
To make the cupcakes, beat the eggs in a bowl and then add the buttermilk. Melt the butter, add it to the bowl and mix well. Stir in the orange zest.
In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, almond meal, sugar and mixed spice, then fold these into the wet mixture. Stir in the sultanas.
Spoon the cake batter into the cake cases, about three-quarters full, and bake for 18–20 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
Heat the apricot jam or marmalade in a saucepan with a dash of water until it becomes liquid. Using a pastry brush, glaze the cakes while they are still warm and then allow to cool.
For the icing, mix all the icing ingredients together. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a small plain nozzle and pipe a cross onto the top of each cake.
Love Aimee, x by Aimee Twigger (Murdoch Books, £16.99). Photography by Aimee Twigger.
