Rhubarb and Custard Cupcakes

I decided to make some cupcakes this week and found this recipe from the Cupcake Heaven magazine that I purchased earlier in the week. I thought that this was a classic combination and would be a different idea.

The recipe can be found in the magazine but the basic sponge was made adding yoghurt and rhubarb to the classic sponge cake ingredients. It used only 1 egg to 150g of flour. The sponge recipe was baked in the oven for around 30mins and then left to cool.

Sponges are cooling after coming out the oven

Whilst the cakes were cooling the theory is to make some custard, however, I had a little disaster with mine as I wasn't watching it properly and it boiled over and burnt everywhere. So I popped into the local supermarket and bought a tin instead.

Once the cakes are cool then I cut out a small square from the top and piped in the custard.

A small square was cut out and filled with custard

Custard filled sponges

Next step was to make the frosting for the cakes, after much research and previous problems, I decided to use unsalted butter this time to try and make it thicker, and what a difference. The icing tastes great but is also MUCH thicker, in fact so thick that when I first tried to pipe it the bag split and I needed to add some milk to thin it out a little. I didn't make enough icing to cover the cakes but I did the best job I could with the small amount. The piping worked much better with the thicker icing and held it's shape beautifully. I know that in order to get proper piping swirls I'm going to have to continue using butter. 

I piped a small swirl on each cake and then it was time to make the rhubarb compote. This was so easy. Slice up the rhubarb and then add some sugar, bring it to the boil then cover and leave it to boil for a few more minutes. The rhubarb softens up very quickly and disintegrates to form a lovely topping. Final touch was to allow this to cool and then top the cakes. 

Swirls of various sizes on the top of the cakes. The shape was holding beautifully

A zoomed picture of one of the swirls

Once done it was time for the tasting. Oh they're good. The sharpness of the rhubarb is perfectly complimented with the icing and custard. You can taste each part and they go beautifully together. Very very nice cakes.

My husbands comments are "mmmmmmmm..... " and that he doesn't know what else to say, they're very nice. 

The finished cakes

Zoomed in for a closer look. Fantastic

So for our marks.. I give the cake 10/10, I can't think of any way this can be improved and it's different from standard cupcakes that I've tried. I could happily eat plenty more and the sharpness makes them not too sweet. From my husband.. 9/10 (very high score!!) he says to make that a 10 maybe they should be muffin size so that when adding the custard I wouldn't have to cut it out through to the bottom but could leave some sponge underneath. To be fair to the recipe it does say to make 12 muffins and I made 24 cupcakes so basically that makes the recipe perfect!!

So total for these cupcakes 19/20.. fantastic score!