Gerald Berry cupcakes

At 2.40pm on Monday the 17th of January 2011, Ms. Dowzard's 6th year Music class will sit a class test on Gerald Barry's Piano Quartet no.1 and then after the test, we will never be subjected to the torturous piece ever again.

So, we are having a party to celebrate and I have decided to make Gerald Berry cupcakes for the occasion..

If you too would like to have a Gerald Barry party, you might enjoy this recipe. Though I hope for everyone's sake, we will be the only people to ever have a Gerald Barry party.

The recipe I am basing this on is Nigella Lawson's fairy cakes recipe from "How to be a Domestic Goddess", which is the most beat-up torn apart book in our kitchen. The fairy cake page is sticky and dirty, I've used it so many times.


Gerald Berry cupcakes (makes 12)




125g unsalted butter, softened but NOT melted
125g caster sugar
2 large eggs
110g self-raising flour
100g freeze-dried berries (you can buy them in health food stores or you can do what I did, and pick all the berries out of the Special K red berries box)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 tablespoons of milk

200g milk chocolate
100g white chocolate
A few drops of pink/red food colouring


1. Preheat the oven to 200*C/gas mark 6.
2. Put the butter, sugar, eggs and flour into a large bowl and blitz with a hand mixer until smooth. Pulse while adding the milk to make for a soft, dropping consistency.
3. Meanwhile, put the freeze dried berries into a food processor, and whizz them all up into a fine powder. Add the powder to the fairy cake batter and use a wooden spoon to gently and evenly mix it all together :)
4. Spoon the misture into a tin filled with 12 cupcake cases and put in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Test with a skewer just to make sure (you won't be able to judge them by golden-brown-ness like normal, because they will be red :P)
5. When cooked, remove from the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack.
6. Meanwhile, fill two small saucepans with water and brin to the boil. Chop up the white and milk chocolate and put them in separate bowls (one white choc bowl, one milk choc bowl). Put the bowls on top of each saucepan and stir until the chocolate has melter. It has just occurred to me that regular people have microwaves, so you could just melt them in the microwave. I don't have one though.
7. When the fairy cakes are cool enough to hold for longer than a few seconds, carefully spoon a bit of milk chocolate onto each cake, spreading it evenly on top as if it were icing. Decorate as you please with the white chocolate, but to fit in with me Gerald Barry them, I'm used a cocktail stick to write the names of compositional and instrumental techniques used in the piano quartet. I'm a bit OCD about it but no ones going to complain if theres just a splodge of white chocolate on your cake.


ENJOY