Fun colourful cupcakes with a surprise sweetie centre made using condensed milk.
Recently I made flapjacks using a recipe which only required half a tin of condensed milk. I wondered if I could use up the rest of the tin by making cake. Unsurprisingly there are lots of condensed milk recipes on the Carnation website, where I got this recipe for piñata cupcakes.
The resulting sponge is light, fluffy and delicious. I’ll definitely be making these again!
Ingredients (makes 12 piñata cupcakes)
- 125 g / 4.5 oz plain flour
- 200 g / 7 oz condensed milk (half the normal-sized tin)
- 1 egg
- 85 g / 3 oz butter or margarine
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 0.5 tsp vanilla extract
For the filling and icing:
- 100 g / 3.5 oz butter or margarine
- 200g / 7 oz icing sugar
- Food colouring of your choice (gel food colouring better, but liquid will work fine)
- Mini-smarties, sprinkles… mini sweets of your choice!
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (160 for fan ovens) / 350 degrees F / Gas Mark 4.
Put 12 cupcakes into a bun or muffin tin.
Using an electric stand mixer or hand whisk, beat together the butter and condensed milk. Add the egg and beat in before finally adding the vanilla essence, baking powder and flour. Mix until combined. Spoon the piñata cupcake mixture into the cupcake cases.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until the piñata cupcakes are golden brown and a knife or toothpick inserted into the middle of one comes out clean. Leave them to cool in the tin.
Make your buttercream. Beat together the butter and icing sugar – if using an electric mixer remember to use a cover or go slowly so you don’t create a white cloud. Divide your buttercream into two or three, depending on how many colours you want. Add drops of colouring to the buttercream, stirring and adding more colouring until you get the shade of icing you want. I used the original colour (which is pale cream), yellow and orange.
Now prepare the sweet centres of the piñata cupcakes. Cut out a circular piece from the centre of each cupcake, cutting at least an inch (2.5 cm) deep but not so deep you cut to the bottom of the cake. A picture is better than words for this bit:
I cut the shape out and used a small spoon to scoop out the “cap” of sponge. Cut about a centimetre off the base of these caps and set them next the each cupcake (you’ll need to put them back in).
Now put some mini-Smarties and sprinkles (or any hard sugar sweets of your choice) into each piñata cupcake. Pop the cake “caps” back into the cupcakes, covering the sweets.
Spoon your coloured buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe a swirl of buttercream onto the centre of each piñata cupcake, covering the cut marks.
You can warn people what to expect when they bite into the cupcakes, or keep it a surprise!
Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. Best eaten within 3-4 days.
Looking for some other cupcakes recipes? Try these!
Salted caramel and jelly baby sunbathers beach cupcakes.
Cadbury creme egg chocolate cupcakes.
Claire Huston / Art and Soul
You had me at condensed milk…. Childhood memories
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂 It’s becoming one of my favourites – always handy to have a tin in the cupboard!
LikeLike
This is so cool! I need to do this for Easter!
LikeLiked by 1 person
They’re so cute and the sweeties are a nice extra 🙂 I’m sure you could find little sugar eggs or sprinkles for Easter too x
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was thinking Cadbury Mini Eggs would be perfect.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fantastic!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! They were fun to make and the kids (old and young!) loved them.
LikeLike
You always inspire us! I’m making these! How cute for the kids on Easter!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope they go reallly well for you! The kids here (yound and old) loved them 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ooh I have really got to get a working oven. These look great.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a pain when your oven is out of action. Although when it happened to us I was more annoyed about not having pizza than baking 🙂
LikeLike
Great recipe and a great name too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They are fun and were very popular here with children and the big kids too! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Links I’ve Enjoyed This Week – 24/03/19 – Secret Library Book Blog
These are so much fun! They would be great for Easter and I bet they are delicious as well with the condensed milk.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They were delicious. I’ve never made sponge cake with condensed milk before and it was a nice surprise just how good it was – so light. I’ll definitely be doing it again 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Recipe | Bonfire night chocolate flake cupcakes | Art and Soul
Pingback: Recipe | KitKat chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream | Art and Soul