Miss American Pie Cupcakes
Makes 12-14
Ingredients
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300g (2 cups) self-raising flour
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3/4 cup caster sugar
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80ml (1/3 cup) vegetable oil
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1 large egg
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175ml/6 fl oz buttermilk
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Jam in strawberry, cherry, blueberry and peach or apricot (you will need 20grams/1 oz per cupcake)
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Buttercream with a touch of brown food colouring* see recipe below
Method
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 180°C and line a cupcake tray with cupcake liners.
Step 2 - Sift the flour into a medium bowl, then add a pinch of salt and the caster sugar. In a jug, combine the vegetable oil, egg and buttermilk and whisk. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir to only just combine. It will be thick and puffy so you will need to spoon it into the cases. Fill them about 2/3 full.
Step 3 - Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
Step 4 - Slice off the top of the cupcakes so that they are flat. You could also use plain flour but I wanted a slightly aerated cupcake so I used self raising and sliced off the tops.
Step 5 - Spread jam on top of the cupcake. Then using the tinted buttercream, place in a piping bag.
Step 6 - Start off with a cross hatch pattern. That is, pipe four lines vertically and then pipe four lines horizontally. Then pipe a frill border around the cupcake to simulate a fluted pie crust.
Buttercream icing
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100g/3.5ozs butter, softened
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3 cups icing sugar, sifted
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1/4 cup milk
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a little brown food colouring gel
Step 5 - For the buttercream, beat butter in a small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy, beat in colouring and then sifted icing sugar and milk in two batches until fluffy (about five minutes).