Recipe: Spiced Fruit Cupcakes

 

 Happy Monday! Today I'm back with my first of only two recipes this month. The cold weather has definitely made it's presence known over this last fortnight something I'm thoroughly enjoying as it means I get to wear snuggly pjs, big jumpers and drinks copious amount of hot chocolate and tea. However there are times when a cup of tea on it's own just isn't enough and a sweet treat is definitely needed to compliment it.

And as I was planning out my Christmas recipes, my thoughts turned to adding a twist to the traditional and simple fruit cake. Initially I was going to attempt a cute Christmas Pudding themed cupcake and you could easily adapt these cupcakes to create that but to start off with, I wanted to take it back to basics but experiment it to give it a bit more kick and seasonal spice. And with that these delicious cupcakes were born. Light, fluffy sponge with a gentle kick of the spices melt in the mouth alongside the sweet tang of the sultanas, creating the perfect Autumn cupcake that would be perfect for coffee mornings or a tea break pick me up. They're going down a storm in my house, I don't know if there will be any actually left for me to take into work.

Ingredients 
- 100g Caster Sugar
- 100g Stork, softened
- 100g Self Raising Flour
- 100g Sultanas
- 2 Eggs
- 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
- A Pinch Of Ginger
- A Pinch Of Nutmeg

Method 
1- Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a twelve hold muffin tin with paper cases.
2- Place the softened stork and caster sugar into a bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy, either by hand or by electic mixer. My stand mixer does the job a lot faster but you get exactly the same results from doing it by hand.
3- Beat your first egg into the mixture alongside a tablespoon of flour. Once beaten into the butter mix, add your second egg and another tablespoon of flour. Beat again until fully incorporated, taking time to scrape the sides of bowl to make sure everything gets beaten in.
4- Fold the rest of the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger into the mix, taking your time to make sure you keep all the air you've already beaten into the mixture. For this part I put my mixer on the very first slow setting so whilst it takes some time, it ensure you have a aerated mixture that'll be light and fluffy cake once it's cooked.
5- Once everything has been folded in, gently fold the sultanas in. I actually take the bowl of my mixer and do this part by hand so I know I'm not knocking any air out of the mixture. I use a silicone spatula for this part as they're flexible enough to scrape the sides yet still sturdy enough to fold/mix the sultanas in.
6- Spoon into the paper cases and pop in the oven for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
7- Once cooked, leave them to cool for a few minutes in the tin before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
8- Then all that's left is too enjoy them. I love how they taste not straight out the oven but after a few minutes. It makes the sponge even light and the sultanas just melt in the mouth.