- Today we're making a very special Valentine's Day treat.
Zingy raspberry cupcakes, topped with creamy, dreamy,
Swiss meringue buttercream roses.
These are so easy to make your mind will be blown.
Also, they're delicious.
Let's get started.
First thing we're gonna do
is make a raspberry reduction
to flavor our buttercream,
and if you desire, the cupcake itself.
I'm gonna use some lemon juice,
but zest it first,
because that's gonna go into the batter.
Just zest it over a plate, or into a small bowl,
and we'll use it up like in five minutes or less.
So nice, I love lemon zest in everything.
I'm adding in the juice of half a lemon
into a small sauce pan.
Just don't add those seeds in.
Nobody wants them.
Okay, six ounces of raspberries.
Nice and washed.
One tablespoon of granulated sugar,
and we're gonna put this over like a medium heat.
And then just muddle it
to get all those raspberries broken up.
The juice will congeal
and form a really flavorful red syrup,
so pretty.
Muddle those berries up.
After you've broken up your raspberries,
you can kinda just let this hangout here
for a few minutes.
Come back and stir every once in a while.
You'll see it go into this nice red syrupy stage.
At which point you're ready to strain it,
and set it aside.
Raspberries are all broken up now.
While my reduction is simmering and reducing,
we can start our dry ingredients off.
I'm adding in one and two thirds cups of all purpose flour.
That's about 213 grams if you're measuring it out.
To this I'm gonna add a quarter teaspoon of salt,
a generous quarter teaspoon of baking soda,
a generous teaspoon of baking powder,
one full cup of granulated sugar.
Sift it out.
Give it a nice whisk,
so everything incorporates.
Set it aside, and let's check that reduction.
It's looking nice and thick.
Lets transfer that over,
and get that sifted out.
Alright, strain this.
You don't want to have all those raspberry seeds.
But, you can save the seeds for a smoothie
or any snacking if you're so inclined.
Alright, now just use a spatula
to press all that through,
because some of it is pretty gel like.
And I don't wanna waste any either.
Then you can see that right now we're left with just
a delicious,
very concentrated
raspberry and lemon reduction.
Pop this into the fridge,
and by the time you're ready to use it
it'll be nice and chilled.
For the wet mixture in a medium bowl,
I have three quarters of a cup,
or a hundred and ninety grams
of unsalted, melted butter.
No room temperature for us today.
One half of a cup of sour cream,
if you don't have sour cream,
go ahead and use whole milk yogurt,
and if you don't have that,
buttermilk or even milk will do.
Half a cup of whole milk,
the zest of one lemon,
and three room temperature egg whites.
I'm using the whites,
because I want this to be a beautiful pink cupcake,
and the yellow of the yolks will interfere with that.
But if you don't care about the color,
just take out a quarter cup of the sour cream,
and use the whole eggs.
Very fresh eggs, look at that, holding together.
And, three egg whites.
You can add a tablespoon of vanilla in,
well maybe a bit less let's say.
And the juice of half a lemon.
Okay, lets give that a whisk.
Okay, aside from getting it on my apron
that's great.
Let's talk about the reduction though.
If you want to make this a raspberry cupcake,
you have a couple of options.
You could add in some raspberry halves,
just break them in half.
Coat them in flour, and then add in hmm
maybe about a couple or so of them
into the batter at the very end.
You don't want to break them up they're very delicate.
Or, you could add that reduction in,
But let me show you what happens when you
add a raspberry reduction in.
It's very interesting.
These are cupcakes I made last night
with this recipe, and I added in about
three tablespoons of the raspberry reduction,
maybe like two and a half.
They were a beautiful pink color when we started off,
but as you can see it looks like I used Terre Rouge
or something.
I think it's actually a pretty lavender color.
Very delicate, but it doesn't scream raspberry
to me.
And when you take a bite,
you're getting like very faint notes.
If I told you there was raspberry in there,
you'd say oh I taste the raspberry.
But, it's a beautiful lilac color,
and for Valentine's Day I want a nice pink color.
So, no raspberry reduction.
yes to the lemon zest and juice.
We'll be using our raspberry reduction
for the buttercream.
And a sole, tiny little drop
of soft pink food coloring
to get that nice color that we want.
If you don't want to use that though,
go ahead and omit it.
It'll be like a pretty pale yellow color.
Mmm, these are good though.
Add one drop of soft pink food coloring in
and not deep pink or hot pink.
It's soft pink.
If you're using a stronger pink,
just dip a toothpick in it,
and just rub a little bit into the white mixture.
A little bit goes a long way when it comes to pink.
Okay, let's whisk it up.
That's a beautiful soft pink,
but I'm adding more, because when it bakes
the pink lessens of it.
So, two drops.
(gentle music)
There we go, that's a nice pink.
Last step, dry mixture,
pour the wet mixture in and give it a whisk.
You don't even have to use an electric hand beater
or anything, super fast.
Pour that in.
Oh it matches my shirt, I just realized that.
Wasn't on purpose.
Just whisk to combine.
Use a little bit of elbow grease.
That beautiful batter is now ready to pop
into our pans.
I have cute little red liners,
and an ice cream scoop for an exact measurement.
They're gonna bake at 350 for about hmm 12 to 15 minutes.
Keep a close eye on things.
Cupcakes are all done,
now its time for the buttercream.
I'm making a batch of creamy, dreamy,
and just beyond delicious
Swiss meringue buttercream.
If you wanna watch the full how to
with all my tips and tricks, click over here.
Watch it.
You'll become a Swiss buttercream fanatic
I promise you.
But in the mean time,
let me give you an abbreviated set of steps
to make this amazing,
new favorite, frosting.
Separate five room temperature eggs.
While the five egg whites,
one and a half cups of granulated sugar,
that's three hundred grams if you're counting,
and one nice pinch of salt
into a glass bowl.
Transfer the bowl over to a pot of simmering water.
The water can't touch the bowl,
it's a steam heat.
Whisk everything to combine
and then stir occasionally
until it starts heating up.
Once your mixture begins warming,
Whisk continuously until it reaches 160 degrees
fahrenheit.
Or, grab a little bit between your fingers.
You'll see that its really warm and sticky and smooth.
All that sugar has dissolved.
Once you're at 160 fahrenheit,
transfer to a standing mixer
fitted with a whisk attachment,
and begin whisking up.
Start low,
move to high.
You'll get nice, soft, silky peaks,
and that mixer has to keep running until
you are at room temperature.
Once you're mixer is at room temperature,
you can add in two cups of unsalted butter
a tablespoon at a time.
Just drop in the first bit,
mix until incorporated, and continue
until all the butter is gone.
Don't panic if it begins to get soupy,
that's what should happen.
It'll come together once all the butter is added,
and you've mixed it up a little bit.
Finish it off by adding a little bit of flavoring.
For this one,
instead of adding a teaspoon of vanilla,
I added a teaspoon of orange blossom water.
But use vanilla, or skip it all together,
because we'll be using the raspberry reduction
for flavor too.
All done.
So now, let's take a little bit of that buttercream,
so smooth and creamy.
Just plop it into a bowl.
And we're gonna be flavoring a bit of this
and coloring a bit too.
Maybe we'll save some and keep it white,
maybe we'll have a gradient, I don't know yet.
That's about like a cup and a half, maybe two cups.
Lets take a tablespoon of our beautiful reduction,
and just for a moment can we appreciate the color?
Look at that, that gives you a beautiful natural pink
with no food coloring, and we know
I don't ever use food coloring.
Lets take a tablespoon,
and whisk it in.
Do you see this?
I could blend in, I could like paint this on a sheet
and like blend in completely.
Beautiful.
I love the little specs you're getting
of the raspberry skins too.
So natural and lovely.
I have a piping bag fitted with a one twenty five tip,
that is a medium petal tip in case you don't know.
I'm just gonna spoon in some of my beautiful, soft pink
raspberry, Swiss meringue buttercream.
And, I though it'd be fun to try some nice roses.
Now, for the base of the cupcake
I like to just add a dollop,
and build a little bit of a mound.
Now, we can pipe a little spiral.
Then begin piping some small close petals.
(gentle music)
The petals get larger, as you go out.
These cupcakes are so easy to make,
but when you bring them to a party,
or make them for someone special
people love them.
You can really tell there's a little bit of extra effort
put into them.
Okay, there we go.
That's a cute and pretty, really easy soft pink rose.
(gentle music)
Okay.
There we go, another little rose.
So, you saw what they looked like purple.
I really like them pink.
I can't help myself.
I feel like for Valentines Day you want it to be
a special treat.
This is a very moist cupcake.
Can you see this?
Look at it coming apart.
That is melt in your mouth deliciousness.
The Swiss buttercream is so perfectly sweet.
For all of you who've ever had like American buttercream,
and you're like ugh this buttercream
is like just pure sugar,
make a meringue based buttercream
like Swiss or Italian, and your dreams will come true.
You've gotta make this.
Okay, happy Valentine's Day in advance,
I hope you get a chance to whip up a batch,
or I actually even hope even more that
someone makes a batch for you.
If you like my videos, hit that like button and subscribe
and Bon appetite.