EndlessRecipes : White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

I'm famous in some places for my CookieMuffins. And by famous I mean, I once had lunch with an ex-coworker and he said, "You know what I miss most about you? Your CookieMuffins." I even have a note on my computer at work requesting more after I brought a batch in during my first week of the new job (and that's the secret to my success!).


But this isn't about my CookieMuffins except to say that they are a bit predictable at this point. People expect me to make CookieMuffins for all occasions now, so in an attempt to change things up a bit, I decided to make Cupcakes for Valentine's Day. Once I had decided on cupcakes, then came the week of trying to figure out what kind of cupcakes to make...

At first I had decided on baking hearts into the cupcakes as seen over here at Bake It in a Cake! I still want to try this, but I only had Sunday afternoon to bake and I felt that this might have a high failure rate (on my part, that is). I wanted something a little safer to bring to work the next day. I ended up back at the cliche idea of Red Velvet cupcakes – they are easy and everyone loves them...

But as I was getting ready to go buy what I needed a thought occurred to me: PINK VELVET! So, I went to the internets and found some recipes for Pink Velvet. Most seemed to replace the cocoa powder with white chocolate to give the cupcake a chocolaty taste, but to keep the batter pink. And then another twist presented itself to me in the baking aisle when I discovered a premium White Chocolate Vanilla Raspberry bar...

Thus the creation of my newest sweet hit: The White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting! (Recipe adapted from here)

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups bakers sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup whole milk
• about 10 oz white chocolate raspberry bar, melted (I ended up using 2 1/2 4oz bars)
• food colouring, gel is recomended

Pre-heat the oven to 350˚and line normal sized cupcake tins with liners (I like pretty coloured ones).

In a smaller bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat the butter at low speed until creamy.
Add the sugar and beat until fluffy, about 3 mins.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one.

Mix in the vanilla.

With the mixer on low, beat in half of the dry ingredients, then half of the milk. Repeat.

While all that is going on, melt your white chocolate selection. I used a makeshift double-boiler (heat safe bowl over a pot of boiling water), over low heat, string until it was melted to prevent burning.

Add the melted chocolate and beat until incorporated. Try not to over-beat the batter. It should be thick. At this point, you could also add the pink food colouring (about 1/4 teaspoon), but I liked the little pinkish flecks in the batter that came from the raspberries. Note: the flecks ended up cooking out, so next time I might use colouring in the batter, too.

Scoop batter into the lined muffin tins, filling them 2/3 full. I like to use an ice cream scooper – it's the perfect size and it has that little lever thing that gets all of the batter into the cup for you.

These baked about 25 mins in my weird messed up oven. Use the toothpick trick to be safe. Cool on a wire rack when they are done. They should be fluffy, with a slightly harder top. I was told the consistency reminded people of madeleines.

I do have a confession: I feel like I can't make good frosting and so I don't really try that often. Instead, I used Betty Crocker Cream Cheese Frosting (because it was 2 for 1) and dyed it to be a raspberry colour using a combination of red, purple, and pink gels – I had accidentally put in purple when I meant to use pink, but the colour turned out great anyway.