Marshmallow Cupcakes

Here’s yet another recipe that I made ages ago but have only just got round to blogging. I hadn’t made cupcakes for quite a while, so after flicking through The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and finding a recently opened packet of marshmallows from my mum’s secret stash of sweets I decided upon Marshmallow Cupcakes. They’re a lot fiddlier than I anticipated, but seemed to work okay. I doubt I’ll be making them again quite like this, but I’ll put the recipe I used below and make sure to comment on the bits I wasn’t too keen on.

Ingredients:
For the sponge:
120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
1 ½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
45g unsalted butter at room temperature
120ml whole milk
1 egg
¼ tsp vanilla extract
12 medium marshmallows

For the frosting:
250g icing sugar
80g unsalted butter
25ml whole milk
Couple of drops of vanilla extract
Approximately 200g mini marshmallows

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius (325 degrees Fahrenheit), Gas Mark 3.

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a bowl and beat with a hand held electric mixer until everything is combined and of a sandy consistency. Gradually pour in half of the milk and beat until it is just incorporated.

Whisk the egg, vanilla extract and remaining milk together in a jug then pour into the flour mixture and continue beating until smooth.

Spoon the mixture into paper cases to around two thirds full and place in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and an inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave the cupcakes to cool slightly in the tray and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

While cooling, put the medium marshmallows in a heatproof bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water. Leave until melted and smooth.

When the cupcakes are cool, hollow out a small section of the centre of each one and fill with a dollop of marshmallow. This is the bit I hated as the marshmallow was ridiculously sticky, wouldn’t leave the bowl properly and refused to go into the cupcakes evenly. Any tips on how to do this would be appreciated! As a result, the cupcakes at this stage looked like a total mess (but let’s pretend it was deliberate…)!

Place the cupcakes to one side while you make the frosting. Beat the icing sugar and unsalted butter together and then add the milk and a couple of drops of vanilla extract a couple of spoonfuls at a time. Keep mixing until the ingredients are fully incorporated and the frosting is light and fluffy.
You can now either add the mini marshmallows to the frosting or do as I did and use them to decorate at the end.

Spoon around 1 tablespoon of frosting onto each cupcake, swirl around for an even finish and decorate with 3 artfully placed mini marshmallows. The book suggests crumbled digestive biscuits or edible glitter as additional decorations.

Luckily the frosting covered the marshmallow disaster inside so no-one had to know how messy it looked (until now!). In the future I’d probably use marshmallow fluff or just mix a few mini marshmallows with frosting for the inside as melting the medium marshmallows was not something I’d like to do again in a hurry! Despite the marshmallow negativity, the sponge was light, the centre was gooey and it was a sweet and tasty treat.

If you like sweets and cake and aren’t afraid of a little faffing and some very sticky fingers, then this is definitely one for you to try out!