We had a bake sale for Macmillan at work recently and even though I wasn't going to be in the office that day, I wanted to take part. I decided to make cupcakes as I was going to have to do them mid-week after work, and I don't get home that early thanks to a long commute.
When there is a lot of choice in a bake sale, the things that go first tend to be the more indulgent-looking or more unusual. I remembered ages ago seeing some Jammie Dodger cupcakes online and knew there was a recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery book .
The recipe in the book explains how to make your own Jammie Dodger-style biscuits, which might be a fun thing to do one day, but I didn’t have time for that, so I bought a packet of mini Jammie Dodgers to use on top of the cupcakes. I remembered how good my cupcakes were that have an Oreo biscuit base and a Jaffa Cake base and decided to use a full-size Jammie Dodger in the base, before the batter was cooked, and also add a spoonful of jam in the middle of the cake after it was baked, which isn’t part of the recipe and is my own adaptation.
Here’s what I did
Makes around 15 cupcakes
For the cake:
15 Jammie Dodger biscuits
70g butter, softened
210g plain flour
250g caster sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
210ml whole milk
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
15 tsp strawberry jam (about 200g)
For the frosting:
15 mini Jammie Dodgers
500g icing sugar, sifted
250g butter, softened
Preheat oven to 180C.
Mix the flour, butter, sugar, baking powder and salt with an electric mixer. Normally I would cream the butter and sugar first then add the eggs; this way gives you a breadcrumb-like texture which I think gives a more biscuity-flavour somehow, which is just right for this recipe.
Pour the milk into a jug and beat in the eggs and vanilla, and gradually pour the liquid into the dry ingredients, mixing slowly as you go. Increase the speed of the mixer until you have a smooth batter.
Line a cupcake or muffin tin with large cupcake cases. Place a Jammie Dodger – with the heart facing up – in the bottom of each cake case, then spoon the cake batter on top until the cake cases are almost full. Bake for 20-25 minutes then leave to cool.
When the cakes have cooled, use a teaspoon to remove a little of the centre of the cake, retaining the part you removed in one piece. Add a teaspoon of strawberry jam to each cupcake, and replace the 'lid'.
To make the icing, beat the icing sugar and buttercream until smooth. I had intended to pipe swirls onto the cupcakes but ran out of icing (I thought I had more but didn’t!) so ended up spreading it on top to make it go further. Top with a mini Jammie Dodger.
I'm sharing these with Charlotte's Lively Kitchen as she runs the Food Calendar challenge, and this month was the Macmillan Big Coffee Morning.
