Blackberry & Cinnamon Yogurt cupcakes with Crumble topping

This weekend has been the hottest of 2014 so far which can only mean one thing. First BBQ of the year and sunbathing! And despite wanting to spend most of the weekend in the garden, I still made time for baking. 

As it is finally starting to feel like summer I wanted to bake something light, summery and fruity. I found a recipe for blackberry & cinnamon yogurt loaf which I thought sounded really nice. However, being an experimental baker, I decided to make a few changes. I didn't want to make it as a loaf so I decided to bake the recipe as cupcakes. Also, the serving suggestion on the original recipe was simply to dust with icing sugar which I thought was a little boring so I decided to add a crumble topping. 

Ingredients:
135 ml sunflower oil
175g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
200g frozen blackberries
125g golden caster sugar
125g Greek yogurt
3 eggs
zest & juice of 1 lemon

For the crumble:
50g plain flour
25g unsalted butter, chilled
15g light brown soft sugar

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and line a muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Make the crumble by rubbing the butter into the flour using your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Then stir in the sugar.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl, add the frozen berries and toss to coat. 
4. In another bowl mix together the caster sugar, oil, lemon zest & juice, yogurt and eggs. 
5. Pour into the dry flour mixture and stir well to combine. 
6. Divide the mixture equally between the paper cases, approx. 3/4 full. Then sprinkle each cake with a thin layer of crumble.  
7. Bake for approx. 30 minutes until the crumble has turned golden brown. It's also a good idea to do the trusty skewer test to check that the centre is cooked! 
8. Transfer to a cooling rack. 

Tip: When dividing the mixture between the cases, I ensured that the first dollop of mixture in each case didn't contain any blackberries. This was to guarantee a solid base as I didn't want the juice from the berries to affect the bake. 

I wasn't entirely sure how long these would take to bake, as the time on the original recipe was for baking it as a loaf and thus was much longer. Generally cupcakes take between 20 and 30 minutes to bake. Since these had a high fruit content I thought it was likely to be on the longer side, but I kept checking them and rotating the tray until a skewer came out clean. 

...and 30 minutes later!

Before...

Presentation is almost as important as taste; even if you knew something tasted amazing, would you want to eat it if it looked like a dog's breakfast? Answer, probably not! Since these cupcakes require no icing or decoration, I decided to use tulip paper cases rather than the standard cupcake cases, to make them stand out and look a little bit special. I've never used this type of case before but I think you'll probably be seeing a lot more of them in later bakes because I love them. 

I love the dark purple marbling of the blackberries and the way the crumble separated out as the cupcakes rose. They definitely look better than any dog's breakfast I have ever seen!

YUM!

Hannah xx