Raspberry Ripple Cupcakes! - It tastes like ice cream!

These are really simple, just like any other sponge cake, its pretty much the same recipe as the candy cane cupcakes, but without the frosting and with the addition of some flavouring and colour. However, they have a visually spectacular result with very little effort. Remember the screwball ice creams you used to have as a kid? They taste like that, but without the bubblegum at the bottom! I have to apologise for the photo, I was hope to find a decent picture of a screw ball, but so many were not the raspberry ones!

Sainsbury's Version of the Screwball

Ingredients

8oz margarine

8oz sifted SR flour

8oz caster sugar

4 eggs

2 tbsp of vanilla essence

2 tbsp raspberry essence

Pink food colouring (the amount is up to you)

a little milk if the mix is a bit thick 

(the bigger the eggs the less likely you are to need milk)

The method is the same as any other sponge cake, until just before they go in the oven. Read on to find the twist....

•  Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease your cake tin or lay out your cake cases
• Using an electric whisk, cream the margarine and caster sugar together until light and fluffy. 
• Add the eggs one at a time mixing on a high speed. With each egg add a little flour (about a tablespoon) This just stops the mixture from splitting. 
• Put the vanilla essence and the raspberry flavouring in and mix that through.
• Now switch to a wooden spoon or spatula and fold in the flour, about half at a time. 
•  If the mix is a little thick, add a little milk a tiny splash at a time and stir the mix.
• Now pour the mix into cupcakes cases but don't put them into the oven just yet! 
• Take your food colouring and with either a steady hand or a pipette put a drop or two onto each cake (a good make shift pipette is a drinking straw dipped into the food colouring, but before you bring the straw out of the bottle put your finger over the end of the straw. Put this over the cake and a small amount of mix will splash down onto top)
• Then take a cocktail stick, and swirl the mix around the top of the cake. Don't mix too much though as you will just end up with a pink cake and no ripple! 
• Now you can put them in the oven. 15-20 minutes will do the trick. If you decide to make one huge cake with this mix then 25- 30 minutes will be enough.

When the cakes have cooled, they are delicious as they are however, making butterfly cakes with a little raspberry jam and vanilla butter cream works a treat!