Out of so many existing cake flavors in the world, white chocolate raspberry ranks pretty high on my list of favorites. The cupcake recipe I formulated came from a couple of sources, beginning with a white chocolate strawberry cake I saw in a Southern Living magazine when I was a teenager. Always eager to learn cake science, I was given a book called The Cake Mix Doctor which led me to my next discovery for batter tricks: instant pudding and sour cream. Adding these two ingredients to any cake batter yields a wonderfully rich and decadent texture. Thus, I am here, providing my mashup of cupcake knowledge to form this recipe!

Raspberry-filled Cupcakes

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 package white chocolate instant pudding mix
• 4 egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups milk (at room temperature)
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
• 1 stick unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup sour cream
• seeds from 1 vanilla bean (optional)
• raspberry preserves for filling
• fresh raspberries for topping

White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

• 2 sticks unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 5 tablespoons vegetable shortening
• 1 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 2/3 cup marshmallow cream
• 4 ounces white chocolate (melted and cooled)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Yield: about 30 cupcakes

Directions

Sift together the flour, instant pudding, baking powder, and salt in one bowl and whisk together the milk, egg whites, and vanilla in another bowl. Set those two aside for now. In a third bowl (yes, this recipe will require quite a bit of dishes), cream together the butter and sugar with an electric beater for a few minutes until light and fluffy.

Now we’re going to add the wet and dry ingredients to the butter and sugar, but only a little of each and taking turns. We want those to kids play nicely i.e. not give us any lumps! This technique is  used in sponge cake recipes, which gives the batter a texture that works nicely with fillings. Start with a bit of the dry mixture, beat, add a little of the wet, and so on.

Once all these ingredients are incorporated with the electric beater, fold in the sour cream and vanilla bean with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. Fill your muffin pans with cupcake liners and fill each cup a little over half to about 3/4 full, depending on how big you want the cupcakes. I tend to make mine smaller as I love to have lots of room to load on the frosting!

Bake the cupcakes for approximately 18-22 minutes at 350˚F. Once the cupcakes have cooled completely, we’re going to dig little holes out of each cupcake to make some room for the raspberry preserves. There are probably tons of fancy tools out there for this particular task, but I have an apple corer that never gets any attention and fits the criteria for this job swimmingly.

Using a pastry bag, fill each cupcake with the raspberry preserves.

I find that frosting recipes are very individual, and everyone has their preferences. I prefer an airy, fluffy, and overall not-too-sweet frosting. I’ve also found that adding marshmallow cream makes any frosting insanely amazing! It stiffens up the texture, yet it still maintains the lightness that I’m seeking in frosting. Beat together the fats, sugar, marshmallow cream, white chocolate, and vanilla extract. Voila! White chocolate buttercream! After frosting the cupcakes, top each with a fresh raspberry.

A perfect sweet summer sendoff!