treasure chests

....or cupcakes with cinnamon apricots and sweet clotted cream....

Apricots this season have been incredible. I'm not usually such a fan but they have been consistently yum! so, so sweet! and here I am again popping them in a dessert. As you know I'm a HUGE fan of pretty cupcakes. I especially love butterfly cakes. They remind me of my childhood when I was allowed to pick my very own sweet treat for afternoon tea. Butterfly cakes were always top of my list! The last time I made them myself was for my husbands birthday in 2006. As co-incidence would have it, Caroline from Fox Drink Water and her family were about to pop over to help us celebrate. The salads were made, the bbq was ready and the butterfly cakes were about to be assembled and then my waters broke............4 hours later (and 16 days early) our first child was born. SO yes, I haven't made them since and then these little cakes kind of morphed into little chests of buried treasure. They are delicious though and if you are a big kid at heart, well, I'm sure they will even transport you back to your childhood, when you were allowed to pick your very own afternoon tea treat.

ingredients

1) 1 ½ cups plain flour
2) 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
3) 110g softened unsalted butter
4) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5) ¼ cup milk
6) 2 eggs
7) just under 2/3 cup caster sugar

1 cup water
½ cup caster sugar
6 whole apricots,sliced in half
1 cinnamon quill

250g Clotted cream

how to make your Treasure Chests or cupcakes with cinnamon apricots and sweet clotted cream

Pop the oven on to 180C. Line a 12 cup capacity muffin tin with cases.

This part is best done about an hour before serving. Wash your apricots. Make sure they are ready to eat; not too ripe and not too unripe. Cut them in half, discard seed and set aside. Grab a wide based saucepan and pop in the water, sugar and cinnamon quill. Put over a medium heat and bring to a simmer, making sure all the sugar is dissolved. Once simmering, add the apricots and simmer for 3 minutes. Take out the apricots with a slotted spoon and pop on a plate in one layer. Set aside. Pop in the fridge when cooled down a little until needed. Strain the syrup and set aside at room temp.

Pop the first 7 ingredients into a bowl and mix with an electric mixer for a couple of minutes until mixture is smooth. Place large spoonfuls into cases and bake for 18 mins or until cakes are cooked through.

Place them on a cooling rack and assemble about 10 - 20 mins before serving.

TO ASSEMBLE:
Take out ingredients from the fridge. Grab your knife and at an angle cut the tops out of each cupcake. Using a teaspoon, scoop a little of the cupcake centre out and discard. Grab a bowl and add about 1/2 to 3/4 of the cream and add about 2 - 3 teaspoons of the syrup. Give it a really good mix together until it's well incorporated. Time to taste test! If you think it needs it add a little more syrup. Now, give each cupcake a good dollop inside (the buried treasure!), top with an apricot (cut side up) then replace the top of the cupcake over the apricot. Give them a good dusting with icing sugar. Serve.

VARIATIONS:
*Instead of clotted cream you could use marscapone.
*Instead of adding the syrup to the clotted cream or marscapone you could simply use a half teaspoon of rosewater or even a sweet dessert wine.
*Instead of apricot you could use pear
*If you're not a fan you could omit apricots all together and just fill with the clotted cream

enjoy!