Recipe #20 of NEWrecipes52 ...

The rhubarb season is coming to an end and a friend at work gave me a BIG bunch of stalks from the patch, growing in her garden. Usually when I buy (or am given) rhubarb, I just make a traditional crumble and serve it with custard. This time, I wanted to try something a bit different. I wanted to combine the rhubarb and custard flavours into ... a cupcake!!!

A bit of online research and I came across this recipe on The Caked Crusader (great title!) blog. I used the recipe as inspiration but tweaked a few ingredients to suit my taste buds.

It all starts with rhubarb. Bright pink stems of sour goodness ...


First task was to wash the stems, after all, they'd just come straight from the garden (and I didn't want any little uninvited guests in my cakes!). I cut each stem into 1 inch chunks and put them into a large saucepan with just a couple of tablespoons of water and added a sprinkling of golden caster sugar, to take the edge off the tartness. The rhubarb was simmered for about 4-5 minutes, enough time to soften but not completely break down and loose it's shape. Once softened, I tipped the rhubarb into a colander to cool and to strain off all the juices, which would be used to create a deliciously tangy syrup to add to the cake and butter-cream mixes ...


The cake mix was a simple vanilla mix of sugar, butter, eggs and flour. The recipe called for milk to be added, but I used some of the rhubarb syrup instead ...


I didn't have any cupcake size cases, so I used muffin sized cases instead and still managed to get 11 cakes out of the mixture ...


Now onto the tricky bit! I didn't want my cakes to just be rhubarb & custard flavoured ... nooooo! I actually wanted to have rhubarb & custard INSIDE the cakes ... a little surprise centre waiting to ooze out when eaten.

The stewed rhubarb needed to be mushed (technical term!) and at first I tried doing this with a fork, but I didn't like the consistency ...


So instead, I put the fruit into my blender and whizzed it (another technical term!) into a beautifully smooth (and pretty looking) pale pink puree ...


Now to get the gooey goodness into the centre of my cupcake. I started by using one of my tiny biscuit cutters (no idea where I bought it from. Sorry!) ...


To make a hole in the centre of the cake ...


Into which, a dollop (yet another technical term!) of rhubarb puree was dropped ...


Followed by a teaspoon of custard (I used ready-made as I really couldn't be bother to make my own, but you certainly could, if you wanted too) ...


It's a messy job, but DH got to nibble on all the "centres" ...


We're almost done (thanks for reading this far!) ... now for the butter-cream topping. This is a fairly regular mix of icing sugar and butter, but for a twist, I threw in a couple of tablespoons of the ready made custard and some of that lovely pink rhubarb syrup ...


The mixture was wonderfully soft and fluffy and a dream to pipe onto the cupcakes themselves ...


And here's how they looked ...


I sliced through the cupcake so you can see the gooey centre. Of course, you don't see the inside bits when you're just biting into it ... and that's what makes these Rhubarb & Custard Surprise cupcakes such a hit!