Rum Butter Cupcakes

I decided to decorate these fat free cupcakes with rum butter. This is something we often have at Christmas with rich fruit Christmas puddings. It is a local product of Cumbria in England.
Ingredients
1/2 cup--4 oz--110 gm unsalted butter
1/2 cup--4 oz--110gm soft brown sugar or dark brown sugar
2--3 tablespoons of dark rum
Method
Mix the sugar and butter well together and add the rum
Decorating
Spread the rum butter on the cupcakes and decorate
Variations
Put the rum butter in the fridge to cool and serve on warm cupcakes such as ginger cupcakes or vanilla cupcakes and add some fresh fruit.
I topped the cupcakes off with green glace cherries, angelica, green edible silver balls, pattern dusting and white chocolate drops. You could just leave a swirl of rum butter and a dusting of icing sugar

I hope these give you some ideas. Labels on the left has more recipes and ideas
Thanks for reading

CHRISTMAS CUPCAKES RECIPES

Christmas mincemeat cupcakes recipe. In England one of our traditional foods at Christmas is a mince tart. This is a small pastry pie filled with sweet mincemeat. I thought I would create a recipe for a Christmas mincemeat cupcake.
Ingredients
Recipe 1.
4 oz self raising flour
4 oz butter
4 oz castor sugar
2 medium eggs
2 tablespoons milk or sherry
2 oz sweet mincemeat
Recipe 2.
110 gm self raising flour
110 gm butter
110 gm sugar
2 medium eggs
2 tablespoons of milk or sherry
55gm sweet mincemeat
Recipe 3.
1 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs ,
2 tablespoons of milk or sherry
1/4 cup sweet mincemeat
Method for all Recipes
1. Get all your equipment out, mixing bowl, wooden spoon, paper cases, tablespoon, knife, baking tray, cooling wire rack, scales, sieve and set these out on the work surface. Place the paper cases into the baking tray.
2. Get all the ingredients out.
3. Weigh out the sugar and place in the bowl.
4. Weigh out the butter or margarine and place in the bowl.
5. Weigh out the flour.
6. Using a wooden spoon mix and beat the sugar and butter/margarine together until they are absolutely smooth, this can take up to 2 minutes depending on how soft the butter or margarine is if you do it by hand or quicker with a mixer. The mixture will turn pale and fluffy.
7. Break one egg and add it to the mixture, beat it in until it has blended with the mixture. Repeat with the second egg. Add the milk or sherry and blend.
8. Use the sieve to add the flour to the mixture as this will add extra air to the mixture. Gently fold in the flour or mix in slowly with an electric mixer. The mixture should be a nice type of dropping consistency.
9. Using a spoon divide the mixture into the paper cases and just half fill the cases, filling about 12 paper cases. Using a teaspoon place a teaspoon of mince meat in the centre of each cupcake. Then with the remaining mixture-batter cover the mincemeat so it is trapped in the centre.
10. Switch on the oven temperature 375F, 190C and gas 5. Let the oven get warm. You can put the oven on when you start so it is already warm. Place the tray of cupcakes on a shelf in the centre. They will take 12 to 18 minutes. When the cakes are firm and springy to the touch and they look well risen and golden they will be cooked.
11. Remove from the oven and place on the wire try to cool. Cover with a dusting of icing sugar. They are good eaten warm.
ENJOY

Mixing the butter/margarine and castor sugar. Adding the eggs one at a time and mixing well in.

Adding the flour to the mixture using a sieve. The finished mixture-batter.
Placing a teaspoon of sweet mincemeat on the top of the mixture.
The Christmas mincemeat cupcakes ready to come out of the oven.
Christmas orange chocolate cupcakes for friends to enjoy. I made these cupcakes to take to some friends. The mixture was the chocolate cupcake recipe with grated orange rind added and orange juice. To decorate them I made some orange butter cream-frosting.

Ingredients 50gm--2oz butter or margarine, 125gm--4oz of icing sugar and 1 teaspoon of orange juice. If you need more double the quantity.

Method Mix the butter and icing sugar together. It is quicker with an electric mixer. Add the orange juice. Pipe or spread onto the chocolate cupcakes. Add chocolate sprinkles, fresh satsumas, oranges and chocolate drops. Serve and enjoy.

The archive has lots more ideas for healthy eating cupcakes, pumpkin cupcakes and ideas on how to decorate cupcakes. Enjoy.

BUTTER CREAM ICING CUPCAKES RECIPE

Chocolate cupcakes with Butter Icing.
The recipe is below for the cupcakes and the butter icing

These cupcakes use the recipe for chocolate cupcakes which is really moist and delicious.
INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup--6oz--175gm butter or margarine
3/4 cup--6oz--175gm castor sugar
1 cup--4oz--115gm self-raising flour
1/2 cup--2oz--60gm cocoa
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 tablespoon of warm water
METHOD
Cream butter or margarine with the castor sugar in a large bowl. Add the vanilla extract. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift in the flour and the cocoa. Fold in. Add the water. Place the mixture in individual cupcake cases in a baking tray. Cook at gas 5--190C--375F for 12 t0 15 minutes.

I then decided to make a butter cream decoration and use a piping method. The Butter cream was made the following ways,

INGREDIENTS

In the U.K. we have a wide choice of spreads. You can use benecol and flora proactive if you are wanting to reduce cholesterol. I decide to use benecol to see what it was like. I found it quite good but it does not have the same taste as butter.

3 oz--75gm butter or margarine or benecol spread

6 oz--150gm icing sugar

1 tablespoon of milk or water

METHOD

Mix the butter and icing sugar together in a bowl. If using butter it is a good idea to let it soften if taking it straight from the fridge. Add the liquid and mix well. I then placed the icing into a tool I use for piping. I prefer this for small quantities but I would use a large icing bag for a large amount of butter icing. This tool has 4 different nozzles so practice with it until you get control and the designs that you want. It is really quite easy to do . You could have a few prepared with different colours of icing.

Icing Tube and 4 nozzles for the piping to decorate the cupcakes

Volcano chocolate cupcake
Swirl chocolate butter cream cupcake
The '99' chocolate cupcake
Lattice chocolate cupcake

I hope you enjoy making these cupcakes from the cupcake recipes.