Purple velvet cupcakes with blackberry frosting

Use up an abundance of blackberries with these irresistible chocolate and berry cupcakes – they’re almost too pretty to eat

  • Prep:1 hrs
    Cook:15 mins
  • Easy

Nutrition per serving

  • kcal 451
  • fat 18g
  • saturates 11g
  • carbs 68g
  • sugars 54g
  • fibre 2g
  • protein 4g
  • salt 0.4g

Ingredients

  • 300g blackberries, plus 12 extra for decoration
  • 100g butter
  • 100g milk chocolate, broken into chunks
  • 225g self-raising flour
  • 175g golden caster sugar
  • 2 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • a little red or purple artificial food colouring
  • 100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 400g icing sugar, sifted
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

  1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. Roughly crush half the blackberries with a fork so the juice is running but there are still some chunky bits. Gently melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa powder and a pinch of salt in a large mixing bowl. Put the kettle on.

  2. Scrape the butter-chocolate mixture and eggs into the dry ingredients with the crushed blackberries and 100ml boiling water. Mix together until smooth, then add a little food colouring to boost the red/purple hue. Divide between the muffin cases and bake for 15 mins until risen and a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Lift from the tin onto a wire rack and cool completely.

  3. Whizz the remaining 150g blackberries to a purée. Beat the butter, icing sugar and vanilla together until really pale and fluffy – about 5 mins. Sieve the remaining blackberry purée and gently fold into the icing. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with your favourite nozzle and pipe a generous amount onto each cupcake – removing the paper case first if you want to show the colour of the sponge. Top each with a fresh blackberry and enjoy.

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