Neapolitan Cupcakes

Impress someone special with these neapolitan cupcakes. The mixture of cake flavours not only looks impressive, but is so tasty paired with a delicate strawberry frosting.
Makes: 12 cupcakes
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 250 g / 2 cups flour
• 3 g / 1/2 tsp salt
• 9 g / 2 tsp baking powder
• 112 g / 1/2 cup Mirage margarine
• 150 g / 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 236 ml / 1 cup milk at room temperature
• 5 ml / 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 112 g / 1/4 cup cocoa powder

For the icing:

• 454 g / 2 cups Mirage margarine at room temperature
• 400 g / 4 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 15 ml / 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 60 ml / 4 tbsp strawberry purée (10 strawberries puréed in a blender and strained)
• 30 ml / 2 tbsp 35% cream
• pink food colouring

Directions

For the cake:

1. With a hand or stand mixer, cream together Mirage margarine and sugar until fluffy (5 minutes). Add eggs, one at a time. Add milk and vanilla extract.
2. Mix together flour, salt, baking powder in a separate bowl and combine with wet ingredients.
3. Divide batter into two bowls. Sift cocoa powder into one of the bowls and stir well to combine.



4. Line a muffin tin with white paper muffin/cupcake liners. First, divide the chocolate batter evenly between all 12 lined tins. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, then pour the white vanilla batter on top being careful to not dip down to the chocolate layer.





5. Bake for another 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

For the icing:

1. In a large bowl, cream the Mirage margarine on high speed with an electric mixer for 3 minutes, until smooth and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl several times with a rubber spatula.
2. Add the vanilla extract. Mix on low speed until the extract is just combined with the margarine.
3. Add 1 cup of the icing sugar to the creamed margarine, and mix on low speed until just incorporated.
4. Continue adding the icing sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.
5. Put strawberries in a blender and blend until puréed. Strain through a sieve into a separate bowl and set aside.





6. Once all of the icing sugar is incorporated into the icing, add the pink food colouring to the desired shade along with the strawberry purée, and mix the frosting on high speed for 5 minutes.
7. Add in the 35% cream and mix on high speed for 2 minutes. Then decorate with a star tip on cooled cupcakes.



Chef Notes

• After the cupcakes are cooled, the cake and icing (stored separately) freeze well.