I made these for the Iron Cupcake competition in Leeds for the theme “summer berries”. I took the idea of the traditional Eton Mess (fresh cream, meringue and strawberries) but used buttercream. The inside of the cupcake is stripy, which is a nice surprise when you bite into it!

60mins – Prep time: 40 mins – Cooking time: 20mins

Ingredients

Cupcakes

• 4oz golden caster sugar
• 4oz margarine (I use Stork)
• 4oz self raising flour
• 2 medium/large eggs (get them out of the fridge beforehand to warm up to room temp)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste/3 drops vanilla essence
• Red food colouring

Buttercream

• 100g butter
• 220g icing sugar
• 1tsp vanilla essence

Strawberry sauce

• 15 strawberries
• 2 tbsp soft brown sugar

Decorations

• Meringues – you could make your own or you could just use one of those meringue nests you can buy from the supermarket
• Strawberries to decorate – try to use the smaller ones for decoration and larger ones for the sauce

Instructions

Oven temp: 160°C/320°F

1. Before making the cupcakes, make the strawberry sauce. Remove stalks and slice strawberries into about 6 pieces each. Place them in a saucepan with the sugar and simmer over a gentle heat for about 10 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally. The strawberries will go very slushy.
2. Use a masher to gently squash all the strawberries and simmer with the lid off for another 2 minutes.
3. Run the sauce through a sieve to remove all the pips and pulp and leave to cool.
4. Lay out cupcake cases. If you use silicon you can lay them on a flat baking tray, if you use paper ones, I advise using a bun tin to make the cakes hold their shape
5. Whisk the eggs and sugar for at least 4 minutes with an electric hand whisk and beat air into the mix so it fluffs up.
6. Bit by bit, sieve in the flour and baking powder and add bits of butter, whisking the mixture each time to ensure a smooth texture, until fully mixed, then mix in the vanilla paste or essence.
7. Divide the mixture evenly into two bowls. In one bowl mix 4tbsp of strawberry sauce. Add red food colouring the batter is strongly coloured.
8. Take a spoonful of the white batter and spoon into the middle. Gently make a well with the base of a spoon in the middle. Repeat with pink mixture. Fill cupcake cases about two thirds full.
9. Put the cupcakes into the oven for 15-20 minutes until they feel spongey and the tops have got some colour.
10. Once out of the oven, place on a wire cooling rack to cool down
11. To make the buttercream, cream the butter on its own for a couple of minutes using an electric hand mixer, then add the icing sugar and vanilla essence and beat until light and fluffy.
12. Make a cupcake swirl, but after you’ve scooped the buttercream on, gently drip on strawberry sauce so that it gently makes a strawberry ripple in buttercream.

    Need help learning the swirl? Watch this fab video from youtube

13. Take your meringues and crumble it – I made my meringue quite fine to show off the sauce underneath but you can make it as chunky as you like. Sprinkle over the top of the buttercream.
14. Garnish with a strawberry, then try not to eat them all at once!

Whatto, it must be Pimm’s o’clock! For me, summer is officially marked by the first Pimm’s of the season, usually shared with friends at the Royal Norfolk Show or previously on Southsea Common. I love the refreshing blend of fruits that you put in it: strawberry, cucumber, orange and mint. I’ve been thinking about how best to combine all the flavours into a cupcake and this is the result. The buttercreams all work really well, none of them overpowered each other including the cucumber which I thought would be awful because it’s quite watery. Make it into a “virgin cupcake” (no alcohol) by warming the Pimm’s in a saucepan on the hob for a minute or so. If you wanted to strengthen the flavour of the Pimm’s, then I would suggest using more than specified and reducing it in a saucepan on the hob.

Ingredients

For the cupcake

• My basic cupcake recipe
• 60ml Pimm’s

For all buttercream

• 400g icing sugar
• 250g butter

For the strawberry buttercream

• 8 strawberries
• 1tbsp sugar

For the cucumber buttercream

• 30g cucumber (use skin, but not seeds in centre)
• Small amount of green food colouring

For the orange buttercream

• Juice ½ an orange
• Rind ¼ an orange
• Small amount of orange food colouring

For the mint buttercream

• 8 fresh mint leaves
• Small amount of green food colouring

Instructions

1. Make the cupcakes as per the instructions on the basic cupcake recipe, adding in the Pimm’s at the end of stage 3.
2. Divide up the butter and icing sugar into 4 (100g icing sugar, 62g butter) and put in 4 separate bowls. Mix each until light in colour and fluffy. I recommend using a hand mixer (it saves on arm ache!)
3. Strawberry buttercream: Make the strawberry flavouring by roughly chopping the strawberries and putting in a pan with the sugar over a medium heat stirring often. Once softened, mash gently with the back of a spoon and leave to soften a little more (about 2 minutes). Pass the mixture through a sieve to remove seeds. Leave the mixture to cool, then mix into one portion of the buttercream.
4. Cucumber buttercream: Very finely chop cucumber and mix into one portion of the buttercream. Add a small amount of green food colouring, but keep it quite pale (the mint buttercream should be a stronger green).
5. Orange buttercream: Blend in juice and rind into one portion of the buttercream, then add a small amount of orange food colouring to give a gentle hint of orange to it.
6. Mint buttercream: Very finely chop mint and add to buttercream, then add a small amount of green food colouring, making sure the green is slightly stronger than that of the cucumber version.
7. Piping: I used a piping bag and a large open star piping nozzle to pipe. I put the nozzle in the bag, then placed it in a tall glass, spreading the top of the bag over the top of the glass. You’ll need to put all the buttercream in at once, otherwise all the colours will get mixed up.
8. Using a tablespoon, take a scoop of a one of the buttercream and gently push it to one side of the piping bag. Take another tablespoon and repeat with the next buttercream and so on and so forth. Once you’ve done one “layer” you can repeat again with the four colours – you don’t need to make sure each buttercream goes on the same side as the one before.
9. Pull the bag upright and knock out any air in the bag then twist it at the top to close it. Make your swirls, they’ll come out all tie dye! If you need help with swirls try this basic cupcake swirl tutorial.
10. If you want to add “lemonade” to your Pimm’s cupcakes, garnish with a ¼ slice of lemon.

Summer strawberries, mmm delicious! The strawberry flavouring you can buy in bottles has a very artificial taste, but making your own sauce is so incredibly easy, there’s no reason not make it. Plus any leftovers could easily be drizzled over some icecream. I loved opening up the cake box and letting the smell of fresh strawberry hit me.

Instructions

Strawberry sauce

• 15 strawberries
• 2 tbsp soft brown sugar

Cupcakes

Strawberry buttercream

• 300g icing sugar, sifted
• 80g butter
• 1/2 tbsp milk

Decorations

• Hot pink sanding sugar

Instructions

1. Remove stalks and slice strawberries into about 6 pieces each. Place them in a saucepan with the sugar and simmer over a gentle heat for about 10 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally. The strawberries will go very slushy.
2. Use a masher to gently squash all the strawberries and simmer with the lid off for another 2 minutes.
3. Run the sauce through a sieve to remove all the pips and pulp and leave to cool.
4. Follow the instructions from the basic cupcake recipe to make the cupcakes, spooning 2tbsp of strawberry sauce into the batter with step 3.
5. To make the buttercream: Using an electric mixer, mix the icing sugar and butter together until fluffy and creamy. Add 4 tbsp of strawberry sauce and the milk and whisk again until smooth. If you wish to make the cupcake swirl illustrated in the picture, you’ll need to make sure the mixture is stiff enough to hold until set, so add a little more icing sugar if needs be.
6. Frost cupcakes and sprinkle a little pink sanding sugar around the outside rim of the cupcake.

Need help learning the swirl? Watch this fab video from youtube – I just don’t reverse the palette knife back the other way.

As some of you know Lay The Table has taken a move up North – Leeds in fact, and that’s meant I haven’t posted for a little while as I haven’t had internet access at home. On the upside, moving has allowed to me the opportunity to finally get a herb window box.

We went with zinc window boxes because they looked prettier than the plastic ones and at £9.99 each seemed like good value for money. We thought we’d need to buy seeds but Homebase offers a variety of herbs in various stages of growth – many of which are on offer (4 for £10 etc). We bought:

• rosemary
• thyme
• lemon thyme
• chives
• oregano
• strawberries
• lavender
• and sage

As the window boxes didn’t come with any hooks to secure them outside, we bought some metal cable and secured them to the ledge outside. They’re in quite a windy location but they seem to be holding up well! Hopefully once we’ll bring you some beautiful herb recipes soon!

All told, it cost about £55, including 2x window boxes, 8 plants, plus 2 bags of compost. I’m sure it isn’t as cheap as buying just what you need from the supermarket, but I like the thought of being a little bit more self-sufficient, and if the plants are well looked after, we can keep them for a long time making them a little more economical. All items purchased from Homebase.

A classic recipe that’s sure to impress anyone! It’s so easy to make it look stunning, fresh fruit really sets it off. I use buttercream to fill it with fresh cream on top with a little lemon juice and rind to cut through the sweetness of the filling. You can use any kind of topping, I love using brightly coloured strawberries but you could use cherries and fill with cherry jam or whatever’s in season.

30mins – Prep time: 10mins – Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients

Sponge mixture

• 6oz golden caster sugar
• 6oz margarine (I use Stork)
• 6oz self raising flour
• 3 medium/large eggs (get them out of the fridge beforehand to warm up to room temp)
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp vanilla bean paste/5 drops vanilla essence

Buttercream

• 100g butter
• 100g icing sugar

Filling

• 8 tbsp strawberry jam

Lemon cream

• 100ml thick double cream
• 2 tbsp lemon
• Rind 1/2 lemon
• 3 tbsp icing sugar

Decoration

• 8 strawberries
• 6 blackberries

Instructions

1. Grease and line 2 round tins (I used 17cm wide x 2cm deep).
2. Make the sponge: Whisk the eggs and sugar for at least 4 minutes with an electric hand whisk and beat air into the mix so it fluffs up.
3. Bit by bit, sieve in the flour and baking powder and add bits of butter, whisking the mixture each time to ensure a smooth texture, until fully mixed, then mix in the vanilla paste or essence.
4. Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins and smooth over.
5. Place in the oven for 25mins until the sponge is springy to the touch
6. Remove from tins, peel off greaseproof paper and leave to cool on wire racks
7. Make the lemon cream: Sieve the icing sugar into the cream and add 1/2 the lemon rind. Mix together with an electric whisk until it’s stiff enough to hold without moving.
8. Make the butter cream: Blend icing sugar and butter together with an electric whisk until the butter pales and goes soft.
9. Put the cake together: Spread buttercream with a palette knife on one sponge base and a thick layer of strawberry jam on the other. Sandwich together.
10. Using the pallette knife spread the fresh cream onto the top of the cake, leaving sponge visible around the edge
11. Dust with a little icing sugar if desired and finish by sprinkling the remaining lemon rind on the top

There’s nothing like indulging in a little luxury from time to time and Charbonnel & Walker chocolates offer you just that. I could hardly contain my excitement when I discovered they had a shop in Leeds where you can choose your own little boxes of treats. My particular favourite are strawberry truffles which is truffle encased in a delicious strawberry coating. My mum always buys me the champagne ones at Christmas, when they come in a gorgeous round pink box.

The best bit is that you can choose single chocolates to put in box and they come thoughtfully tied with ribbon. I think I’ll be putting them in my Christmas hampers this year. My little box of six cost me £6.80.

Pop into the shop or you can order online at www.charbonnel.co.uk

Make the best of summer fruits and enjoy a British tradition, stawberries and cream, with a twist! The best thing is these aren’t too sweet, with the lemon just curbing the sweetness of the strawberries.

20mins – Cooking time: 1hr – 1 1/2hrs

{Serves: 3-4}

Ingredients

16 basic cupcakes {see here for the basic cupcake recipe}

Lemon cream

• 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 400ml fresh double cream
• 4tbsp icing sugar

Icing

• 200g icing sugar
• blue food paste
• water

Decoration

• 1 punnet organic strawberries (they’re nice and small and fit on the cupcakes)
• 50g pomegranate

Instructions

1. Make the icing by adding a few drops off water to the icing sugar until it’s a thick but spreadable consistency, then add colouring as desired. Ice the cupcakes by picking up a teaspoonful and gently smoothing into a circle on the top of the cupcake.
2. Make the lemon cream by combining all the ingredients and gently whisking with an electric hand mixer until it forms stiff peaks. Don’t overdo it though!
3. Using a star tip, pipe the lemon cream into a swirl on the top of the cupcakes, leaving some of the blue icing visible.
4. Decorate by gently placing a strawberry onto the top of the cupcake and placing 4 pieces of pomegranate around the lemon cream swirl.