Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Great fun to make, and with a surprise strawberry and cheesecake filling on the inside! Makes 12 large cupcakes.

Ingredients

For the Cake

350g Plain Flour

1.5tbsp Baking Powder

140g Caster Sugar

Finely Grated Rind of Two Oranges

1/2tsp Salt

2 Eggs

250ml Milk

85g Butter, Melted

For the Filling

175g Reduced Fat Cream Cheese

3 tbsp Sugar

6 Strawberries, Halved

For the Icing

100g Reduced Fat Cream Cheese

10g Butter, Softened

300-500g Icing Sugar

Freeze-Dried Strawberries (optional)

Method

1. Grease or line a muffin tin and preheat oven to 200C/Gas 6/fan 180C. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl, and stir in the orange rind and salt. 

2. Beat the eggs and milk in a small jug, and stir in the butter. Add to the dry ingredients gradually to make a loose and slightly lumpy mixture. 

3. For the filling, mix the cream cheese and sugar together. Half fill each hole in your tin with cake mix, then push in half a strawberry, and top with a teaspoon of filling. Then add a spoon of cake mix on top to cover the strawberry and filling. 

4. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean, and leave to cool completely.

5. Meanwhile, prepare the icing by beating the sugar and cheese together until fluffy, and then gradually adding the icing sugar until you get a thick paste consistency that is still spreadable.

6. To finish, using a small palette knife, spread the top of each cupcake with icing, and sprinkle on some freeze-dried strawberry pieces.

Enjoy :)

                                                                                                                                                                                               

Double Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Summer has finally come to England, and there's no better way to celebrate it than strawberries. This delicious and indulgent dessert looks as good as it tastes, and is much easier than you may think. For the adults out there, add some liqueur to the melted dark chocolate for an extra boozy kick. Also, i recommend cutting the stalks off, and chilling the strawberries before starting. I've written approx. for the chocolate, as it depends how much you use per strawberry. If you don't want to have the dark chocolate, skip to halfway step 3.

 Ingredients

1 punnet strawberries

Approx. 50g Dark/Plain Chocolate
Approx. 25g White Chocolate

Method

1. Wash and dry the strawberries, and melt the dark chocolate. Once melted, pour into a ramekin.

2. Dip each strawberry into the chocolate about 1/2-3/4 of the way, and let all the excess chocolate drip off into the ramekin. Place with the chocolate facing up onto a sheet of greaseproof paper.

3. Let the chocolate set completely (if in a rush, put them in the fridge to set), and melt the white chocolate.

4. Hold a strawberry from the bottom over the pan/bowl of white chocolate. Take a small spoon of white chocolate, and let some drip off until the stream is thin. 

5. While moving the spoon around the strawberry, let the chocolate drip onto it, and enrobe the strawberry. WARNING: do not try to scrape off failed attempts of white chocolate from the dark base layer; the liquid white chocolate will melt some of the chocolate below, and you'll end up with a smudged mess.

5. Again, let the chocolate set, and let them come to room temp. before serving.