Love Shake Cupcakes

Instructions

Cupcakes

Before we make the batter there are a couple things to prepare. Preheat a fan-forced oven to 120°C (250°F) or a conventional oven to 140°C (275°F). Line two cupcake tins with white cupcake liners. My cupcake liners are greaseproof cupcake liners from a Sydney based brand named Confetta. They measure bottom: 5cm, height: 4cm, top: 7.5cm. The cupcake tin I use is from a brand named Willow. Any brand will do. The measurements of the cupcake tin I use is, bottom: 5.5cm, height: 3cm, top: 7cm. Spray a 12-cavity cake donut baking tin with oil spray, use a paper towel to gently wipe down the tin and spread the oil spray around evenly. The donut tin tray that I use measures: 7.5cm in diameter and 2cm in depth. It’s important you don’t use a donut tray that is larger in diameter than the diameter of the top of your cupcakes, otherwise your finished cupcakes will look unbalanced and odd. Either use the same donut tray measurements as me (if you can) or use it as close as you can. Slightly under is better than larger than the one I use.
Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt to a large mixing bowl and mix with a hand mixer (or stand mixer) until well combined.
Next, add the softened butter and mix on low speed until the mixture reaches a crumbly, sand-like texture.
Add the eggs, milk, oil, yoghurt, strawberry flavouring, white food gel and vanilla extract, and mix on low speed until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Scrape down the side and bottom of the bowl and mix for a final 20 seconds.
Split the mixture into 6 mixing bowls. Colour each bowl the colour of the rainbow. Mix using a spatula or spoon until evenly mixed. Add each coloured batter to a piping bag. Snip a very small bit off the end. It’s really important you snip off only a very small bit off the end because it will make piping into the donut tray much, much easier.
Let’s begin by piping batter into the donut tray. We will be piping one donut at a time and will be making 8 donuts in this recipe. Pipe a thin line of orange batter on one side of donut cavity, quickly followed by the yellow next to it, then green, blue, purple and the pink all the way on the other end of the donut. Go back over the rainbow with the coloured batters. You want to aim to fill each donut cavity no more than halfway. Bake for 20 minutes and then allow to cool for 10 minutes before gently tapping the tray on a kitchen towel on your work bench to get the donuts to pop out. Allow to cool on a cooling rack.
Next, let’s move onto filling the cupcake liners. You want to aim to fill the cupcake liners just over ¾ of the way. So, keep that in mind as you fill them. Begin by piping a layer of orange batter at the bottom of each cupcake liner, followed by the yellow, green, blue, purple and finish with the pink. Bake for 1 hour. Yes, 1 hour. Wanna know how I get really beautiful flat cupcakes with no browning? I bake on a low, slow temperature! The cupcakes come out a little denser, but they’re really moist and still really delicious! Once the cupcake shave baked, transfer to a cooling rack to cool down completely.

Frosting

Add your softened butter to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. You can also use a hand mixer for this recipe, but if you do use a hand mixer, just make sure your bowl is large. Mix the butter on low speed to begin with, then switch to the highest speed and mix for 5 minutes until the butter is fluffy and turns pale in colour.
Stop your mixer and scrape down the side of the bowl using a spatula. Add the powdered sugar, strawberry flavouring and vanilla extract and mix again on low speed. LOW SPEED PEOPLE! The last thing you need is to end up in a sugar dust storm! (I’m speaking from experience…)
Once all the sugar has been incorporated, it’s safe to turn your mixer up to high speed. Continue beating on high speed for about 5–6 minutes, or until the buttercream turns pale in colour and becomes fluffy again. If you want to soften your buttercream and make it a little smoother, add 1 tbsp of milk and continue mixing for another couple of minutes on medium speed. I wouldn’t recommend adding the milk if it’s a warm day.
Split the frosting into 6 mixing bowls. Colour each bowl the colour of the rainbow. Add each coloured frosting to a separate piping bag, Snip off a bit of the end.
To achieve a super clean rainbow frosting swirl, we’re going to use a frosting hack. Lay out a large piece of plastic wrap on your workbench. Pipe lines of each coloured frosting next to each other in the order of the rainbow. You’ll pipe each colour twice. Roll up the frosting into a log, and twist both ends. Snip off one end using scissors and place into a large piping bag fitted with a Wilton 6b piping tip.

Chocolate Sauce

Add all the ingredients to a large, microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high, for 20 seconds at a time, mixing well with a spatula between each interval, until smooth.

Let's Put It Together!

Core the centre of each cooled cupcake using an apple corer and fill with sprinkles or whatever you like.
Pipe a double donut swirl on top of each cupcake. Drizzle the frosting with chocolate sauce. Place a donut on top and drizzle with chocolate sauce.
Place a candy ball on top of the frosting in front of the donut. Place the cupcakes in the fridge and chill for 20 minutes. We want the chocolate sauce to harden so that we can dust it with gold lustre dust.
Once cooled, use a small food safe paint brush to gently brush the chocolate drips on the cooled cupcake with the gold lustre dust. Once you’ve finished that, insert two rainbow straws into each cupcake!

Ingredients

Cupcakes & Donuts

Frosting

Chocolate Sauce

Decorations

Instructions

Cupcakes

Frosting

Chocolate Sauce

Let's Put It Together!

Notes

Nutrition