The perfect pick-me-up

on cupcakes

Cupcakes were one of the first things I made when I opened Violet as a market stall nearly 20 years ago. It was the right time for it - a few years earlier Sex & The City had put Magnolia Bakery on the global map for their brightly coloured cupcakes, and as a newly landed American in London it made sense for me to bring that with me, it felt almost expected.

In the years since then the cupcake landscape has changed massively. There have been hybrid creations with donuts and croissants, elaborate decorations, upside down cupcakes, whoopie pies (I even wrote the book on those), but there’s something so special about a classic cupcake. Often, when I’m working at Violet in the afternoons, I’ll find myself drawn by the pastel buttercreams on display and it’s always just as satisfying as I’d imagined.

A good cupcake can be the perfect pick me up, but they can go wrong easily. The size of the sponge compared to its surface area means they can dry out quickly, and you can quickly become overwhelmed by too much sugary buttercream. I don’t hold with the trend towards overly decorated cupcakes, like any cake they need to be balanced and flavour comes first. You can fall into the trap of thinking about baking as separate from cooking but you need to always bear in mind the textures and flavours you’re working with. Season a buttercream as you would anything else; use salt and acid to counter the sweetness.

You can turn most cake recipes into cupcakes fairly easily - an 8”/20cm layer cake recipe will yield enough batter to make 24 cupcakes and the icing can be divided up between them. When icing: simple is best. An ice cream scoop of buttercream, quickly shaped with a palette knife, creates a perfect nest for beautiful fresh fruit or chocolate mini eggs at easter. At Violet we also pipe a zigzag across the top of cupcakes with a Wilton 125 Tip, and both have sort of become our signatures. Take inspiration from us, but play around if you feel comfortable and create your own signature.