Why have only one treat when you can have 2in1… Today I’m sharing my recipe for a batch of trifle cupcakes, the ultimate combination of a trifle and cupcake.
These cupcakes came about after having some ingredients left over and wanting to prevent food waste – so you get cupcakes and save food from landfill, you can’t go wrong.
As always, these cupcakes are super simple and contain almost all the elements a traditional trifle would or slightly amended to work in cupcake form. It starts with a vanilla cupcake, which has the centre cored out and is filled with a homemade vanilla custard (or if you want to be post, creme pat) and strawberry jam. Topped with freshly whipped cream and finished with 100s and 1000s – what’s not to love?
If you’re looking for a simple cupcake recipe with an alternative topping to buttercream – you bets get your ingredients weighed up and your oven preheated as these will be the perfect cupcakes for you!
I only made 6 cupcakes, as that’s what I could make to use up the ingredients I had ready to use up but I will be sharing the measurements for a batch of 12 cupcakes, so you can work from there with the recipe.
Anyway, let’s get started, shall we?
Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
175g Butter.
175g Granulated sugar.
2 Eggs.
1 tsp Vanilla extract.
15-30ml Milk.
175g Plain flour.
1 tsp Baking powder.
Pastry cream:
125ml Milk.
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract.
30g Egg yolk.
25g Granulated sugar.
15g Plain flour.
Jam Filling:
Strawberry or raspberry jam for the filling.
Topping:
300ml Double cream.
1 tsp Vanilla extract.
50-100g Icing sugar (depend how sweet you like the cream).
100s and 1000s or rainbow sprinkles.
Method:
Before you get started on the recipe, you’ll want to do some prep. I recommend that you start by weighing up all of your ingredients, followed by preheating your oven to 180˚c/350˚f, lining a cupcake tray with cupcake cases and getting any equipment you may need, such as a stand mixer (or a hand mixer, whichever you have access to) and a spatula.
To start, I like to make the cupcakes. For the cupcakes I used the all in one method, this is simply where you place all of the ingredients into a bowl and beat them together until they combined. So, into your mixing bowl you can go ahead and add in the butter, granulated sugar and then add the plain flour, baking powder and salt in passing through a sieve first. Then you can add in the eggs and vanilla extract.
You can then start to mix the mixture on a medium high speed just until everything has been fully incorporated and a clear batter has formed, try your best not to over-mix the batter at this stage, otherwise the baked cupcakes may have a unpleasant tougher texture.
Once your cake batter is ready, give the bowl a quick scraping down, just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in from earlier on.
Then you can go ahead and add the cake batter into the cupcake cases, filling them around 2/3 or 3/4 of the way full (try and fill each of the cases as consistently as possible). You can then transfer the tray into the preheated oven and bake for about 20 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean when inserted into the centre).
While the cupcakes are in the oven, it’s the perfect time to make the custard filling.
To make the creme pat/custard, you’ll want to grab a small/medium saucepan and place in the milk and vanilla extract. You can then place that over a medium-high heat and allow to almost reach a boil.
While the milk is doing its thing, you can grab a medium bowl and add in the egg yolks and granulated sugar, then whisk the two together until they are lighter in colour and consistency, the mixture should be a pale yellow-ish colour at this stage.
Add in the flour and whisk until its been fully incorporated and then you can start to add in the milk mix. I recommend you go with around 1/4 of the amount of milk, then whisk until it has been fully incorporated (this helps to temper the mixture, so it shouldn’t scramble but if it does, start over). Continue to add the milk mix in small amounts until it has been fully incorporated.
You can then return the saucepan to the hob, over a medium heat, whisking constantly and after a short while you should notice that the mixture is thickening, this is what you’re looking for (it shows that the flour and eggs have been throughly cooked and the custard is safe to consume), make sure the mixture has thickened enough to hold its shape but still be spreadable.
Once you have achieved that, you can then transfer onto a clean baking tray or a bowl and cover with cling film and allow to cool fully. The cling film is used to prevent a skin from forming on the custard and the thinner you can spread it out, the quicker it will cool down.
Now you have made the custard and the cupcakes are baking, you can go ahead and clean up.
Just before you intend on serving these cupcakes, you can make the sweetened whipped cream topping (feel free to leave the icing sugar out if you don’t want sweetened cream).
To make the cream, simply grab a clean mixing bowl and add in the double cream, vanilla extract and icing sugar and then beat until you achieve stiff peaks with the cream – remember handling the cream will continue the mixing process, so keep that to a minimum. Once the cream has thickened and holds its shape, you can transfer into a piping bag with a nozzle of your choice (I went with a star nozzle).
Later on, once everything is made and ready to use, start by whisking the creme pat until its a smoother and more pip able consistency, place the jam into a piping bag and have your sprinkles to hand.
Take a cupcake corer or apple corer and core the centre out the cupcake out, fill with a generous amount of the creme pat and strawberry jam, then pipe on the whipped cream and finish with your choice of sprinkles. Serve and enjoy, best eaten within 24 hours!
That’s all for today guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back soon with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my other social’s – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. The YouTube tutorial will be linked down below.
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