Original Pink Musk Cupcakes

Musk sticks are very uncooperative ingredients. I've searched and searched for a musk flavoured cupcake recipe and I am yet to find one. So I'm happy to bring you my original musk cupcake recipe! The cakes are absolutely delightful. If you aren't able to get a hold of musk lollies - which is really unfortunate if you can't because they're really, really good - then feel free to leave them out. The rosewater still tastes really lovely by itself.
Ingredients
for cakes (makes 14)
- 2 cups self-raising flour
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- 3 teaspoons rosewater essence
- 130g unsalted butter, melted
- 140g musk sticks
- Five drops of pink food colouring
for icing:
- 125g unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 4 teaspoons rosewater essence
- 3 drops of pink food colouring
- About 7 or 8 musk sticks, grated
- 7 musk sticks, cut into quarters, to decorate
Recipe
- Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius (or 350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Line muffin tray with fourteen paper cases.
- In a large bowl, combine SR flour and caster sugar and make a well in the middle.
- Mix together buttermilk, two lightly beaten eggs, rosewater, food colouring and melted butter and fold through flour and sugar.
- Using a mortar and pestle, break up all but about three of the musk sticks required for the cake batter. Mix the broken up musk sticks with a little bit of rosewater essence until they become a paste. Transfer this paste to a saucepan over medium heat. The musk sticks should melt down and become a sort of gooey mixture. At this stage you need to quickly tip this into the cupcake batter and stir through. With the remaining three musk sticks, cut into small pieces and stir through the batter.
- Divide batter between cupcake cases and pop in the oven for about 19-20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre of a cake. Leave them to cool on a wire rack.
- To make the icing, beat the butter until it is light and creamy. Add food colouring and rosewater and beat again. Add the sifted icing sugar in two parts, combining well after each addition. What you need to do not is grate about 7 or 8 musk sticks very finely (use the side that's usually used to grate parmesan cheese - very fine). Once the musk sticks have been grated, add this to the icing and mix through well. Decorate each cake with the icing (use a piping bag to get a really nice effect) and two musk stick quarters.
Ta dah! Perfect pink musk cupcakes!

Give the recipe a go and let me know what you think of it!