Ginger Cup Cakes with Clementine Cream Cheese Icing

Ginger Cupcakes with cream cheese and Clementine icing

I don’t do much cake baking, I think it’s because it’s less forgiving if you make a little ‘change’ to the recipe by putting too much or little of something in. However this is one cake recipe I do make, it’s sticky, gingery and orangey at the same time which is good in my book.

Makes 12

Ingredients

For the cup cakes

• 125g unsalted butter
• 175g dark muscovado sugar
• 150g golden syrup
• 275g self-raising flour
• 1 1/2tsp ground ginger
• Zest of 1 clementine, finely grated
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 eggs
• 100ml butter milk
• 2 balls of stem ginger in syrup, chopped

For the icing

• 150g Cream Cheese
• 75g icing sugar
• Zest of 1 clementine, finely grated
• Juice of 1 clementine
• Slivers of clementine zest and stem ginger, to decorate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C\ 150C fan\Gas 3
2. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases
3. Melt butter, muscovado sugar and golden syrup in a pan over a low heat and set aside to cool slightly
4. Sift flour into a bowl with the ground ginger and bicarbonate of soda then add the salt and clementine zest.
5. Add the metled butter, sugar and syrup mixture, eggs, buttermilk and stem ginger to the flour and mix thoroughly.
6. Pour into the cases, the mix will reach quite high up the sides.
7. Bake for around 25 minutes until golden and springy, Don’t worry if they haven’t risen particularly well as the are meant to be a dense and sticky sponge.
8. Allow to cool in the tin,this makes the sponge even more squidgy.
9. Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until smooth
10. sift the icing sugar over and gradually beat in
11. Add the clementine juice and zest and mix until fully incorporated
12. Smooth a generous amount over each cupcake and top with the slivers of stem ginger and clementine zest for decoration.

Eat and enjoy….

If you like your ginger sponge to have a stronger, richer flavour, wrap the tin of un-iced cakes tightly in foil or cling-film and leave for a day or two. The sponge will get darker and the flavour more intense. Ice, decorate and enjoy even more gingery sticky goodness…

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