The sun may not have been shining consistently but it’s still time for summery strawberries!

While making my Strawberry Pavlova for last week’s Weekly Bake Off I couldn’t resist making a little extra meringue and attempting some Eton Mess cupcakes. I tried to make a very light cupcake  then made the topping with whipped double cream, a few strawberries (chopped into small pieces), a swirl of strawberry sauce and some broken up pieces of meringue –yum!

Cupcake ingredients:-

90 g softened unsalted butter

30 g trex vegetable fat

110 g self raising flour

10 g cornflour

2 large eggs, beaten

1 tablespoon strawberry sauce

Method:-

Preheat the oven to 160 c and put cupcake cases in a muffin tin. The recipe makes 10-12 cupcakes.

Beat the sugar and eggs well together until light and creamy then add all the other ingredients and beat very lightly and quickly until combined. Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases and bake for about 20 minutes until they are light golden brown and firm to touch.

When cooled the topping was made with 300g double cream, whipped; a few chopped strawberries;  pieces of broken meringue; and some strawberry syrup. Swirl everything together and spoon onto the top of the cupcakes. Eat very quickly! (I didn’t really say that – eat just one and give the rest away very quickly!  )

If you want to make them a little prettier why not put them in pretty vintage china teacups and pipe on the topping

NB – I made my own strawberry syrup – heat a few chopped strawberries in a little water and sugar in a small pan until the sugar is dissolved and the strawberries are soft – then blend.