Pistachio and Raspberry Cupcakes

Pistachio seems to be getting a lot of attention recently, I’ve been seeing so many different pistachio flavoured desserts. I love pistachios but the only dessert I’ve ever had them in is baklava so I wanted to try something different. 

I added a raspberry icing on top of these, honestly mainly just for the aesthetic. I felt like pink and green would look good together but the taste ended up amazing. Turns out pistachio and raspberry is a great combination! 

The icing:

I ended up making a raspberry flavoured cream cheese style icing for this. I don’t really know what to call. But basically, I made a cream cheese icing but without icing sugar. I feel like icing sugar can make icings taste gritty sometimes.

I recently found out about condensed milk buttercream. Which is essentially just a buttercream that replaces the sugar with condensed milk instead, so this is what I did here. 

Can I replace the freeze dried raspberry powder? 

To make the icing raspberry flavoured, I added freeze dried raspberry powder. Personally, I think using freeze dried fruit powders are the best way to add flavour to icings. I get mine from  Amazon, from a brand called ‘Honeyberry’.

If you want to use something else, I would just add some raspberry jam into the icing instead.

I don’t recommend just adding crushed raspberries. Cream cheese icing is quite soft so you don’t really want to add more liquid to it!  

Pistachio and Raspberry Cupcakes

Pistachio and Raspberry Cupcakes

Ingredients
Makes: 14

  • For the cupcakes:
  • 125g softened unsalted butter
    (margarine works too)

  • 125ml vegetable oil

  • 250g granulated sugar

  • 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

  • 4 eggs

  • 250g self-raising flour

  • 60ml milk

  • 150g crushed pistachios

  • Some green food colouring (optional)

  • For the icing:
  • 300g unsalted butter (at room temperature)

  • 375g condensed milk

  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  • 225g cream cheese (at room temperature)

  • 3 tablespoons freeze dried raspberry powder

Directions

  • Making the cupcakes:
  • Start by pre-heating your oven to 180c/350f and also add your cupcake cases into your tins.
  • Add the butter, oil, sugar and vanilla into a large bowl. Beat these together on medium-high speed for 5 minutes. If you are doing this by hand, just whisk this for as long as you can, it is ok if you don't do the full 5 minutes.
  • Add in 2 of the eggs, mix these in then mix in the remaining 2 eggs.
  • Mix in the flour and milk just until you get a smooth batter, then fold in the crushed pistachios. If you want to add some food colouring, add it in at this point too.
  • Fill your cupcake cases 3/4 of the way full with this batter, then bake them for around 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of them comes out clean.
  • Leave these to cool completely.
  • Making the icing:
  • Add the butter into a bowl and beat this for about a minute. You should see it lighten in colour.
  • Add in the condensed milk in 3 parts, mixing in between each part
  • Now add the vanilla and cream cheese. Just mix this until the mixture is smooth, you don't want to whip this for too long.
  • Finally, mix in the raspberry powder
  • Pipe this onto the cooled cupcakes using a large star tip and decorate however you want. I just sprinkled some more crushed pistachios on top. Enjoy!

Video Tutorial

@ashbaber

pistachio and raspberry cupcakes 😩

♬ Soul Food - Ruck P

Share: