White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Frosting

Hello all! So I embarked on my first baking adventure for my new blog. With Valentine's Day around the corner and a new apron sitting in my pantry I was practically scratching at the door in waiting to bake something. So, I sat down and thought long and hard. What says Valentine's Day but in a different, I've never made it way? Chocolate! Obviously chocolate is a Valentine's Day must but I didn't want regular chocolate, so I pulled my favorite kind of chocolate, white chocolate. It's light and super sweet, so I needed to pair it with something that was a little more neutral and not going to make your teeth hurt. So I basically combined a simple vanilla cupcake with melted white chocolate. Perfect! It's a start. All that was left was the garnishing. I had to either pick red, pink, or white, I mean come on it's Valentine's Day time. The cupcakes are already white and I don't really like red, so pink it was! Plus that's my favorite color. And what's the best fruit to pair with white chocolate? Raspberries of course. Strawberries would be really good too. I cheated and used raspberry preserves because I lack a food processor, but that'll hopefully change soon!

So now onto the baking!

This is just a picture of some of the ingredients. Everything is here except for the milk, which was in the fridge. Basically these delicious cupcakes consist of white sugar, all-purpose flour, baking powder, vanilla, white chocolate, eggs, milk, and butter. The raspberry butter cream frosting is just butter, raspberry preserves, and powdered sugar.

The dry ingredients which included flour, baking powder, and salt

To begin with you whisk together the dry ingredients in their own bowl. This includes the flour, baking powder, and salt.

The butter and sugar being beaten

In a separate bowl cream together the butter and sugar until it's totally mixed and has a light, airy texture. This should take a couple minutes.

The liquid batter containing butter, sugar, and eggs

After the butter and sugar are creamed, add the eggs. Add them one at time and make sure they are well incorporated before adding the next ingredient.

Melted white chocolate and my fabulous spoon =D

The next task is to take the white chocolate and melt it so it can be poured into the liquid batter. Take the measured out white chocolate and put it in a microwave safe bowl. Put it in the microwave at 50% power for one minute. Once the minute is up take the bowl out and stir the contents. If not runny and smooth put it back into the microwave for another 30 seconds on 50% power. Just make sure to watch it and not let it boil and burn. When the chocolate is melted and smooth, pour it into the sugar, butter, and egg mixture. This is where you can add the vanilla too. Once the chocolate and vanilla are in the mixture, continue to beat it until everything is well Incorporated.

The dry ingredients going into the liquid batter

The next step is to combine everything and actually make the cupcake batter. Take the dry ingredients and slowly beat them into the liquid batter. I separated the dry ingredients into three separate sections so I didn't dump everything in all at once. You should do this too because you will alternate adding the dry ingredients and milk into the batter. (So you'll add a section of the dry ingredients, half of the measured milk, another section of dry ingredients, the rest of the milk, and then the rest of the dry ingredients.) This makes the batter smooth and creamy.

The milk being added to the liquid batter

When the batter is smooth and ready put the paper or foil (I used both, cause I'm cool) cupcake tins into the pans and fill each tin until about 2/3 full. You don't want to fill them too much because then you'll have a cupcake that looks like a muffin. And I know we all love muffins, but this is a cupcake. lol

Now it's actually time to bake! Put the pans into the oven at 325 degrees F and bake for 18-20 minutes. To test if they're done insert a toothpick into the middle a cupcake. The toothpick should come out clean or with a few crumbs, but it shouldn't be runny.

The outside should be a light brown color. My cupcakes were a little sticky when you touched the top but this went away as they cooled. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for a couple minutes before taking them out to completely cool. While they cool you can make your decorations if you plan to decorate them.

For me decorating included making butter cream frosting and white chocolate hearts. For the butter cream frosting you beat the butter and raspberry preserves together until smooth and well incorporated. Then you add the powdered sugar one cup at time until the frosting is thick and has structure. To make the chocolate hearts you melt chocolate in the microwave with same directions as above. Then you take a spoon and drip chocolate into heart shapes onto wax paper. Let them harden and then remove them from the wax paper. When the cupcakes are completely cool you can put the frosting onto the top and decorate to your heart's content!!

I decorated half with white chocolate hearts...

...and the other half with candy message hearts! How cute!! =D

White Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup of butter

3/4 cup of white sugar

2 large eggs

3/4 cup melted white chocolate

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup and 1 tablespoon milk

Raspberry Butter Cream Frosting

1/2 cup of butter

1/2 cup raspberry preserves

4 1/2 cups powdered sugar (if it's not stiff and thick keep adding more powdered sugar until you get the right consistency)

Happy Valentine's Day and happy baking!!