White chocolate chip cupcakes with raspberry buttercream frosting

White chocolate and raspberry is one of my favourite flavour combinations when it comes to baking as evidenced here and here. Therefore, it was a bit of a no-brainer to bake some cupcakes incorporating these two flavours today as I enjoy the last day of a lovely long weekend. It felt good to whip up a batch of cupcakes using this recipe, as I haven't baked in what feels like the longest time. I have instead been having a pretty awesome summer, but I always feel a bit restless when I know I haven't baked in a while. With the recipe I chose for the cupcakes, I used 2/3 cup of white chocolate chips as well as sprinkling a few on top of the batter incase the others sunk during the baking process. I also baked them for 25 minutes instead of the recommended baking time.

For the raspberry buttercream frosting I used the following ingredients:

• 15 fresh raspberries, washed
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp meringue powder
• extra fresh raspberries, washed (for decoration)

I gradually added the icing sugar to the butter in my KitchenAid stand mixer at a low speed. Next up I pureed the raspberries using a food processor and poured the puree into the already combined ingredients. Lastly, I added the vanilla essence and meringue powder and allowed to mix for approximately a minute. The cupcakes weren't quite cool enough so when it was time to frost them I allowed the frosting to mix for another minute on a medium speed. I used my Wilton 1M decorating tip to frost the cupcakes and finished off each of them with one fresh raspberry instead of dipping into my sprinkles supply.

I think the raspberry on top was a good choice and might just alleviate a small percentage of the guilt associated with eating a cupcake or two.