Jess's Raspberry Trifle Cupcakes

Because i havent got round to making the macaroons yet, i thought i would tackle a slightly tricky cupcake recipe. The recipe i used comes from the Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book, and it took around 3 hours to make (i seriously regretted starting hem at 9.30pm!!)...

INGREDIENTS;
(enough for 12 cupcakes)
For the sponge:
80g unsalted butter
280g caster sugar
240g plain flour
1tbsp baking flour
pinch of salt
240ml whole milk
1tsp vanilla essence
2 large eggs

For the topping and inside:
500ml whole milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
5 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
30g plain flour
30g cornflour
200ml double cream
24 raspberries
100g raspberry jam

So... firstly i mixed together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt until they resembled breadcrumbs. Was one the biggest downfalls of this recipe was that i used a handheld electric whisk.. with a freestanding electric whisk the whole process would have been a lot faster and easier.

I then whisked together the milk, vanilla essence and eggs (by hand),then poured it into the breadcrumb mixture to create a batter. This batter was then divided into 12 cases of a muffin tin, and then put into the oven for around 20minutes.

While the cakes were cooking, i made the custard for the filling and topping. Firstly, i mixed the egg yolks, sugar, cornflour and plain flour to make a paste. I then put the milk and vanilla essence into a saucepan and brought to the boil. I then removed this from the boil and mixed the paste and hot milk together, then brought it back to boil, ensuing everything was fully cooked through. I then removed it from the boil and emptied the mixture into a baking tray, covered in clingfilm to cool down. By this time the cakes were ready to come out of the oven and cool down.

Once the custard was cooled, i poured it back into a large bowl and gave it a good stir to remove any lumps. In another bowl, i whipped the double cream into soft peaks, and then folded it into the custard.

Now comes the tricky part... i then had to hollow out the cakes (with the help of my glamorous assistant Tyrone). Being careful not to remove too much sponge from the cakes making them breakable, we hollow out the middles, and added a raspberry, raspberry jam and some custard into each cake. We then replaced the cut out bit of cake back onto the top of each cake, piped the custard onto the top, and then aded a raspberry to the top!

Finito! So.. they took rather a while.. and were quite tricky in places, BUT were very yummy! I took them into work and everyone loved them, and i would definitely make them again. YUMMYYYY!