Winter Berry Cupcakes with White Chocolate Icing

I am really excited about tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day of the Children in Need charity cake sale at school that I have single handedly organised! On board are a gaggle of keen Year 7s, a few Year 8s and even a couple of Year 9s - all have agreed to bring in home made cakes and biscuits for us to sell at break time outside the Food Technology block. As my contribution to the project I decided to make (slightly more teacher friendly than what I imagine the kids will produce) winter berry cupcakes with white chocolate icing.

When I got home from school today I was absolutely not in the mood to make a batch of cakes, but knew I had to soldier on.

Of course I has forgotten how therapeutic baking is. I baked a batch of lovely cupcakes with wonderful blackcurrant jam brought all the way from Paris running through them. They turned out a really nice shape thanks again to our great muffin tray.

I was planning on doing white chocolate icing with a couple of berries sprinkled on top of each cake for presentation but at the last minute decided to mix the berries right into the icing. The icing ended up looking lovely with ripples of purple, pink and red berry in it.

As I am still following my diet, I remained strong and haven't actually tasted the cakes or the icing, however according to Bailey's expert opinion, they are "8 out of 10, with subtle sweetness and some good bursts of berry".

I really hope that the kids will be willing to pay 25p for a cake and that we raise lots for Children In Need! I hope my first ever Cake Sale experience is a great one!

Recipe (makes 22 little cakes)
110g butter
180g caster sugar
2 large eggs
125g self raising flour
120g plain flour
125ml semi-skimmed milk
3 dessert spoons blackcurrant jam

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Cream the butter and caster sugar together until there are no (or in my lazy case, few) lumps. Add the eggs one at a time and mix.

Combine the flours in a bowl. Add a third of the flour and mix in. Add a third of the milk and mix in. Repeat until all the flour and milk has been added. Add the blackcurrant jam, but do not mix in too much. Add two teaspoons of the mixture into cake cases in a good muffin tray. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until golden.

For the icing
4 bars of Milky Bar
55g butter
30ml milk
250g icing sugar
Handful of mixed winter berries

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave for 1 minute 20 seconds. Mix the butter, milk and icing sugar in a bowl before adding the white chocolate. Add the berries into the icing and roughly mix in. Ice the cakes as soon as possible. Delicious!