Cupcakes are something we all love. I do not believe that I will ever meet a person who will tell me “I don’t like cupcakes”, it is like saying “Puppies aren’t adorable”!

So once last month, when I was just recovering from some bad cold that put me in bed for couple of days I woke up on a Friday morning feeling like I NEED to cook something. See, when I am sick, I watch reality TV a lot. Cooking reality TV. This leaves me wanting to test 100 thousand recipes /and not having the money to buy ingredients even for 50! :D/.

We were having my boyfriend’s mom for coffee the following morning, and she is always  happy to test my culinary experiments so I thought I will make her some cupcakes.

For the sponge, I use my grandmother’s cake recipe, and I can assure you it tastes amazing both in a cake and a cupcake. I frosted them with some cream cheese frosting that I made just winging the proportions and it worked out great. Here is how to make them yourselves:

For the sponge:

• 1 egg
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil
• 7 tbsp yogurt
• 8 tbsp granulated sugar
• 9 tbsp sifted flour
• 1/2 tsbp baking soda
• a dash of vanilla extract / it would also work with any other kind of vanilla you might have/

If you want to make the sponge chocolate instead of yellow, you can add 50g. of cocoa to the mix

For the frosting:

• 100g cream cheese
• 150 – 200g mascarpone cheese
• 1 cup of confectionery sugar
• 50g softened butter

1. For the sponger first mix the wet ingredients and then add the dry – mix with a hand mixer
2. Finally add the baking soda and mix through again until fluffy
3. The molds I used are stand alone and made out of baking paper which eliminates the need to have the special cupcake tin
4. Fill the molds half way through with the mixture and add a block of chocolate (if you want )
5. Bake at 200C until they start forming “hats” with light golden color and if you put a tooth pick in the center it needs to come out clean – this means they are ready
6. Leave to cool completely and in the mean time make the frosting
7. The two cheeses and the butter need to be left at room temperature while you are making the cupcake bases so that you can mix them in easily
8.  In a large bowl add the mascarpone and mix well with a fork (or spoon) and add the cream cheese in, mix both together well
9. Using hand mixer add the butter into small cubes a little at a time until the butter has dissolved and you can’t see tiny chunks of it in the mixture. Add the sugar and mix until fluffy. Put in the fridge for 20 minutes
10. I used an offset spatula for adding the frosting to the cupcakes but if you like you can use a spoon or a piping bag

Hope you like them! 🙂

-К.