Mini Strawberry cakes with Slingsby Rhubarb Gin

DessertServes 30

With another weekend at home in the offing, what better way to pass the time than to rustle up a bit of Bank Holiday baking. This delicious cupcake recipe from Brigit’s Bakery’s uses fresh strawberries along with Harrogate based Slingsby Gin to create these tasty teatime treats with a boozy rhubarb twist! For more information on Slingsby’s range of award-winning spirits and to buy online visit www.spiritofharrogate.co.uk For the ganache:

Ingredients

For the strawberry whipped ganache:

75 g strawberry puree

250 g liquid whipping cream

15 g caster sugar

20g Slingsby Rhubarb Gin

175 g white chocolate

For the sponge cakes:

310 g caster sugar

240g white flour

240 g whole eggs

4g baking powder

137g liquid whipping cream

75g melted butter

2g salt

70g Slingsby Rhubarb Gin

100 g fresh strawberries

Method

  1. In a saucepan add the strawberry puree and caster sugar and gently bring to the boil.
  2. Pour over the white chocolate and mix well using a spatula
  3. Add in the cold liquid whipping cream and the rhubarb gin and mix well to combine
  4. Put mixture in the fridge to cool down. The mix has to be cold to be able to whip it, so prepare in advance and ideally overnight.
  For the sponge:
  1. In a pan gently melt the butter then stir in the rhubarb gin.
  2. In a bowl, mix the cream with caster sugar, whole eggs and salt, then sift in the flour and baking powder, then add in the warm (not hot) melted butter and combine.
  3. Pipe around 30g of the sponge mix into each cupcake case then dice your strawberries and place one piece on the top of each cake.
  4. Bake for 11-12 minutes at 160° C, then leave to cool
To serve
  1. Put the strawberry ganache mix into a bowl of a stand mixer and whip using the whisk to obtain a smooth and firm texture.
  2. Pipe a rosette on the top of each cake and add a piece of fresh strawberry