This tasty little cupcake pays homage to one half of Juniper Cakery’s past addiction to cans of cherry cola. Don’t worry, she’s OK now, but those were dark days fuelled by cherry laced soda. These days she is strictly tea-total and we deemed this cupcake a safer way for her to enjoy her favourite fizzy treat! It’s still pretty addictive, so be careful re-creating the recipe below…
This Cherry Cola cupcake is a subtle cherry flavoured cake swirled with two toned and dual flavoured Cherry and Cola buttercream then finished with bright pink sugar crystals! It’s perfect for the summer; but we think it’d go down a treat at an 80s themed party or shindig! If anyone does this please send us a picture so we can live vicariously through you; we love the idea of a kitsch ‘The Breakfast Club’ themed do!
Makes approximately 12 cupcakes
For the cupcakes…
226g self raising flour
226g butter
226g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon Cherry Essence
Step one: Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 3/325F/170C
Step two: Cream the butter with sugar and once well mixed add in the Cherry Essence, flour and then the eggs.
Step three: Set out twelve cupcake cases in your pan and fill each case 2/3 full.
Step four: Bake from around 12-18 minutes or until a golden brown on top and leave to cool on a counter.
For the buttercream…
We make our buttercream using our own intuition. We’ve tried countless recipes; all of which failed to pass our test (and stability) tests. It’s best that you begin to develop and ‘eye’, ‘feel’ and ‘taste’ so that you know when your frosting is perfect for you. For starters though, the recipe below is a rough guide…
250g butter
250-350g icing sugar
Bright pink sugar crystals
2-3 drops of LorAnn Oil Cola Flavouring
1-2 teaspoons of Cherry Essence
Dark Pink Food Gel Colour Paste
Liqourice Black Food Gel Colour Paste
855 piping tip/nozzle
Piping bags
Step one: Cut your butter into small cubes and cream your butter until soft. Gradually add icing sugar until a good consistency.
Step two: Separate your buttercream into two halves. Add some LorAnn Oil Cola Flavouring with Liqourice Black Food Gel Colour Paste to one half. To the other add Cherry Essence with some Dark Pink Food Gel Colour Paste.
Step three: To get a fun two toned/dual flavoured effect scoop your cola buttercream down one half of a piping bag fitted with an 855 piping tip/nozzle (this tip/nozzle creates lovely ruffled buttercream). After doing so the other half of your bag should be free for you to add your cherry buttercream.
Step four: Now you can pipe lots of generous and tasty swirls of buttercream on top of your cupcakes once they have cooled down and sprinkle liberally with sugar crystals.
You should be left with cake stand filled with tempting cherry cola cupcakes! It’s up to you if you want to share them with anyone else… but we wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t!
