Poker night cupcakes

I'll let you into a little secret. I love to bake. It all started at art college where I was head of the degree show fundraising team. We had to raise over £10,000 to fund our final show and I knew a sure fire way to get some money from poor art students was to hold bake sales each week. We kept the pricing simple and student friendly (6 items for £1) and each week students from my year group donated their bakes to sell. I always baked something and went from a complete novice to a rather good baker - my lemon drizzle cake being voted the most consistently requested cake. Over the school year the bake sales became exceptionally popular and made in excess of £1000 towards our fundraising goal.

Fast forward more years than I'd like and I have become somewhat of a go to baker in my circle of friends and family. I make everything from five tier wedding cakes to cake pops to brownies. But one of my favourite bakes are cupcakes. Since Little I was born I've not had the time to bake except the treats I have made with Little E but Husband hosted a poker night and requested some treats. He consulted with the boys and they voted for blueberry/raspberry cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream. Not exactly what I was expecting them to request!

I had to make them super fast between baby feeds and winding and toddler tantrums but they came out rather well considering. I decided to go for rugged piping with excessive amounts of buttercream to make 'man cakes'. It did feel great baking for adult consumption without toddler fingerprints in the icing!

Here's the recipe for the white chocolate buttercream icing:

250g unsalted butter (room temperature)

400g melted white chocolate

500g icing sugar

• Whisk the butter with a hand electric whisk/stand mixer with whisk attachment until it begins to turn lighter in colour.
• Make sure your melted white chocolate is at room temperature and slowly add to your butter, whisking at all times.
• Gradually add your icing sugar a tablespoon at a time, folding in each addition before whisking to avoid an icing cloud.
• If your buttercream gets too thick add a drop of milk to loosen it up.
• Fill a large disposable piping bag and snip the end for rugged swirl icing.
• You can freeze any leftover icing.

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