What to Make: Hot Cross Bun Cupcakes

Hot Cross Bun Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes?

Prep time 10 minutes

Baking time 18-20 minutes

Decorating time 10 minutes?

Ingredients

For the cupcakes
2 duck eggs or 3 large chicken eggs
90ml buttermilk
185g butter
zest of 1 orange
185g self-raising flour
? tsp baking powder
70g almond meal
185g light brown sugar, lightly packed
2 tsp mixed spice
120g sultanas
1 tbsp apricot jam or marmalade

For the icing
60g cream cheese
40g butter
60g confectioners? sugar
zest of – orange

Equipment
cupcake tin
12 cupcake cases
piping bag
plain nozzle

Method

For the cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 180?C. 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.

Extracted from Love, Aimee x: 50 Beautiful Sweet Gifts for Friends and Family?by Aimee Twigger (Murdoch Books, approx €20). Photography by Aimee Twigger.