Cupcake of the month (July): red currant

I’ve not felt like baking in this baking heat, but yesterday saw a slight reprieve in the daytime temperature around here, a mere 24 degrees, so I seized the opportunity to sneak in July’s cupcake of the month recipe.

The cakes on the calendar this month were called ‘ruby-red’ cupcakes, and required red food colouring as well as cocoa powder to make a deep red colour. However, since we had red currants in the fruit and veg box this week, I thought that I’d make the cakes red by putting red currants in instead of the food colouring – as simple as that. The photos make them look more brown, but when you bite into them, there is lots of redness!

I also had some union jack cupcake cases left from last summer’s olympic and jubilee festivities, and I thought why not bake some cakes with lovely local British summer fruit in them.

They turned out very well – the recipe makes quite a dense cake, very moist and tasty, as it has natural yoghurt in it. They weren’t too sweet either, as the red currants added a sharpness and the cocoa powder a bitterness as well as the sugar to sweeten. My testers approved, which is the main thing in our house.

Ingredients – makes 12

• 130g self-raising flour
• 100g sugar
• 100ml yoghurt
• 25g cocoa powder
• 2 eggs
• 100g margarine
• 80g red currants

Method

1. Prepare a muffin tray with cupcake cases, and preheat the oven to 180ºC (fan).
2. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until smooth and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs and beat well.
4. Add the flour and cocoa powder and mix until just combined.
5. Add the red currants and yoghurt and mix until just combined.
6. Spoon into the cases to about two thirds full.
7. Bake for about 20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean, and leave to cool.
8. Meanwhile make up the drizzle by creaming the margarine, icing sugar and red currants together – I left a few lumpier bits of red currant for texture, but most of the juice went into the drizzle.
9. Spoon it onto the top of the cakes.
10. Eat and enjoy as fresh as possible.