Cupcakes for Tennis

On Saturday my friends and I decided to try our hands at tennis. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve picked up our rackets, trekked to the grass courts and made complete fools of ourselves; however we soon got into the swing of things.

When I say that even a group of ten year old boys watching from a shed roof were laughing at us, you can probably picture how rubbish we were. But hey, whilst we might not quite be destined for Wimbledon, it was still fun to meet with each other and pretend that prancing around a tennis court is legitimate exercise.

Well anyway, physical activity is probably quite a good thing after you’ve consumed these cupcakes. I introduce, Vanilla Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting and an Apricot Surprise. So perhaps not the catchiest of names…but these beauties are my entry for the ‘We Should Cocoa’ challenge, hosted by Chele at the delicious http://thechocolatepot.blogspot.com The challenge this month was to combine chocolate (of course!) with apricot, and after much consideration I decided to go down the cupcakes route. Not being able to find fresh apricots in either the supermarket or my local greengrocers, I opted to fill the cupcakes with good quality apricot preserve and ice with decadent white chocolate whipped cream frosting.

For the cupcakes  

• 2 eggs
• 110g butter
• 110g sugar
• 110g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Apricot jam

1. Preheat oven to 180c.
2. Beat together butter and sugar until pale
3. Add egg and vanilla and beat
4. Stir in the flour with a metal spoon
5. Fill 12 baking cases and bake for 15 minutes
6. Once cooled, take out the centre of the cupcake. Fill with a spoonful of good quality apricot conserve and replace the cake ‘lids’

For the Icing  

• 100g white chocolate
• 100ml double cream

1. Heat cream in a baine marie
2. Add chocolate, take off heat and stir until completely melted
3. Put in the fridge until cooled
4. Using an electric whisk, whisk until the right consistency to ice your cupcakes