Pina Colada Cupcakes

I've written before about Sugar and Crumbs, a company which makes flavoured icing sugars and cocoa powders from natural ingredients. I first came across them at a cake show and I think it's a brilliant idea, especially for those flavours which are hard to replicate. So I was excited when they sent me a packet of pina colada icing sugar to try. It costs £1.99 for 250g or £3.49 for 500g which is plenty for a dozen cupcakes. So not something I would buy every day (you have to pay postage as well) but it's a great idea for something a bit different.

I've made pina colada cupcakes once before but this time I used a different recipe from a fun book called Make Bake Cupcake. I didn't use the frosting recipe from the book though. This is what you need to make 12:

190g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
115g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp. rum
125ml milk
85g tinned pineapple, crushed
60g of dessicated coconut to decorate
500g Sugar and Crumbs pina colada flavour icing sugar
250g butter, softened
cocktail umbrellas to decorate

Preheat oven to 180C and line a muffin tin with paper cases - I used yellow ones.

Cream the butter with the sugar then beat in the eggs. Mix in the rum and milk and gradually add the flour along with the baking powder and salt. Finally stir in the pineapple.

Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and bake for 18-20 minutes until cooked. Allow to cool.

Mix the Sugar and Crumbs pina colada flavour with the softened butter for the buttercream. Using a piping bag and star nozzle pipe swirls on top of the cupcakes. Sprinkle over the dessicated coconut to decorate and top with a mini cocktail umbrella.



I'm sending these to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Jane at the Hedgecombers and Karen at Lavender and Lovage as their theme is barbecues.

And I'm sending these to Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer; the theme this month is summertime special.

Thanks to Sugar & Crumbs for sending me the icing sugar to review.

Pina colada cupcakes

 

Mmm, cocktails in a cake!

I went to a barbecue in the summer and wanted to bake something to take along. I decided that cupcakes were easier for people to eat but wanted to make something summery and something that said 'party'.... which to me means cocktails!

I took this recipe from Eat Me by Cookie Girl (Xanthe Milton) and adapted it slightly as I didn't actually have any Malibu and didn't want to buy a whole bottle for the 2tbsp needed, so I used rum flavouring instead.

You need:
55g butter, softened
140g caster sugar
120ml coconut milk
1 egg
140g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
425g can chopped pineapple (or pineapple rings, then chop them)

She also gave a recipe for icing sugar using caster sugar and egg white and Malibu, but I had some buttercream I needed to use up so decided that would work almost as well, and as I said I added a few drops of rum flavouring to it.

Preheat oven to 180C. Cream butter and sugar.

Mix coconut milk and egg and add to the butter and sugar. Don't worry if it looks a bit curdled like this, it's supposed to!

Beat in flour and baking powder then add chopped pineapple

Fill cake cases and bake for about 20 mins

 

I decided to make some pineapple flowers to go on top

 

This involved slicing some fresh pineapple very thinly and placing on a baking sheet and putting in the oven which was still hot from the cakes

The pineapple crisps and sort of curls up at the edges, which you can see on these cakes below.

I piped on the buttercream but as it was a hot day it went a little runnier than I would have liked. I added some coloured balls and some paper cocktail umbrellas for that cocktail on the beach feeling!

The letter for this month's Alphabakes is P, so my pineapple pina colada cupcakes are ideal! If you want to take part in Alphabakes and need to know the rules, check out my blog post from September 1st.

 

I am also sending these into Cupcake Tuesday, hosted by Hoosier Homemade.

 

 

Calendar Cakes, hosted by Laura of Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of Dolly Bakes also has cupcakes as its theme this month, in honour of National Cupcake Week which is Sept 17-23. So I'm sending them my pina colada cupcakes as well.

 

 

Finally I am sending this to Bake Fest, guest hosted this month by The Mad Scientist's Kitchen, as they accept as entries anything that has been baked. They must get so many entries each month!

 

 

 Thanks to Janine at Cake of the Week who left a comment on this blog post, I can also enter these in another blog challenge. She has started a new monthly challenge called Baking with Spirit, based around cakes containing alcohol (what a great idea!) and her first monthly theme is rum. So these pina colada cupcakes fit perfectly - at least I think they do, given I used rum flavouring and not actual rum - but hopefully it's the thought that counts!