Light spongy cupcakes made with wild blueberry jam. They’re topped with white chocolate and mascarpone which is flavoured and coloured with bilberry powder. These wild blueberry cupcakes are worth making for the colour alone, but bilberries do have quite a few health benefits too.
On a recent trip to St Austell, I was quite excited to discover Nature Kitchen. This is a shop dedicated to spices and herbs. What bliss, I could have spent hours there and bought up half the shop if only I had the time, space and money.
Bilberries
One of the purchases I did make, however, was a pot of bilberry powder or ground dried bilberries. Bilberries are the UK’s native blueberry and grow wild around these parts. They’re incredibly good for you, but the season is short and they are often difficult to find. They’re also much smaller than the commercial blueberry that most people are familiar with.
Buying the powder, I reasoned, would not only enable me to give a blueish colour to cake icings, but would imbue me with super powers too!!!
Wild Blueberry Cupcakes with Mascarpone Icing
I was eager to try the bilberry powder out as both a flavouring and colouring. So I decided to make some wild blueberry cupcakes at the first opportunity. CT had a pot of wild blueberry spread that he’d been gifted at some point, but it’s been loitering around in the cupboard now for far too long. This was the ideal opportunity to use it. It’s called a spread because it’s made with apple juice rather than sugar so EU regulations prevent it being called jam.
For the cake part of the recipe, I based it on the one given for raspberry cupcakes in Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery. I substituted the blueberry spread for the stated raspberry jam. And I also used half wholemeal flour as I usually do and made a couple of other tweaks. The icing I made up.
Rather than mixing the jam into the batter completely, I tried to swirl it in so that the finished cakes were streaky. But by the time the cakes were cooked, it was hard to see the difference in colour. So there’s really little point in attempting that step.
These wild blueberry cupcakes went into the last of my favourite blue cupcake cases. I’ve not been able to find them again, so I heaved a bit of a sigh. But really blue cakes had to go into blue cases.
White Chocolate and Mascarpone Bilberry Icing
The white chocolate and mascarpone icing was delicious. At first I added the bilberry powder rather cautiously. Just a pinch and then a bit more. But the colour was not as powerful as I thought it might be, so I ended up adding larger quantities until I’d used a rounded teaspoonful.
I used some of the sugar alphabet letters from my recent cake decorating wins to write Wild, Blue, Berry, Cup, & Cakes on the top of the bilberry cupcakes. This was rather time consuming and I’m not sure I’d be so exacting again.
The cakes were delicious, well risen, moist and surprisingly light. The icing was also good and set the cakes off nicely, I thought. I loved the colour, but was a little disappointed that I couldn’t taste anything in the least bit fruity. CT, however, as a seasoned bilberry forager was adamant he could taste the bilberries. My palate obviously requires radical cleansing.
Other Fruity Cupcake Recipes You Might Like
- Apple crumble and custard cakes
- Blackberry & apple cupcakes
- Blueberry lemon cupcakes (sugar free)
- Lemon coconut cakes
- Mini orange cakes
- Passionfruit & white chocolate cupcakes
- Raspberry & white chocolate cupcakes
- Roasted strawberry chocolate cupcakes
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these wild blueberry cupcakes, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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Wild Blueberry Cupcakes. PIN IT.
Wild Blueberry Cupcakes – The Recipe
Wild Blueberry Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cupcakes
- 110 g unsalted butter
- 180 g golden caster sugar (I used my homemade cardamom sugar)
- 2 large eggs (I used duck eggs)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 125 g self-raising wholemeal flour (self-rising whole-wheat flour)
- 120 g plain flour (all purpose flour)
- ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 125 ml milk
- 3 tbsp blueberry jam (I used wild blueberry spread)
Bilberry Icing
- 50 g white chocolate (I used Green&Black's)
- 125 g mascarpone cheese
- 1 ½ tsp bilberry powder
Instructions
Cupcakes
- Cream the butter with the sugar until well beaten and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs, one by one, followed by the vanilla extract.
- Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl.
- Stir in ⅓ of the flour, followed by ⅓ of the milk.
- Repeat this process twice more until all the flour and milk is incorporated.
- Roughly stir in 3 tbsp blueberry spread.
- Spoon into 12 muffin holes lined with cupcake cases and bake in a preheated oven at 180℃ (350℉, Gas 4) for 20 minutes.
- Leave to cool a little then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Bilberry Icing
- Melt the white chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of hot, but not boiling water. Leave to cool a little.
- Beat the mascarpone in a bowl with a wooden spoon until smooth.
- Add the bilberry powder and stir it in. You might want to use a little more or a little less depending on what shade of purple you're after.
- Beat in the white chocolate.
- Spread over the top of the cooled cakes with a palate knife.
- Decorate as you see fit.
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
Ros chose B as the letter for this month’s AlphaBakes. So I’m submitting my wild blueberry cupcakes to this monthly challenge which is hosted this month by The more than occasional baker.
I’m also adding these bilberry cupcakes to Made With Love Mondays. This is a blogging event created by Javelin Warrior which I keep meaning to enter but never seem to manage. The aim is to encourage people to make everything from scratch rather than use ready made items.
And I’m sharing these wild blueberry cupcakes with Apply to Face Blog for #BakingCrumbs.
Helen - Cooking with my kids says
What a fabulous colour. And all natural which is even better!
Choclette says
I’m not a fan of artificial dyes, but I do love a bit of colour.
Jenny Walters says
These Cupcakes are just brilliant!!! So unusual and fun. What a great idea to get some natural colour into the icing. My daughter would squeal! I will have to look out for some when things get back to normal. I have some freeze dried raspberries and have used those in a white chocolate cheesecake to much effect. I think white chocolate is such a great back drop for fruity combinations. Thank you so much for your support and for sharing with #BakingCrumbs.
Choclette says
I’m not a fan of using artificial colours, but I do love a splash of natural colour and these dried fruit powders make it so easy. A pink raspberry cheesecake sounds delightful Jenny.
Maya Russell says
I didn’t know you could get bilberry powder. The colour is fantastic.
Gloria says
look amazing!!
Kit @ i-lostinausten says
Wow! Love the color of these gorgeous cupcakes! Never tried Bilberry powder so not sure how it taste like. Maybe by using some fresh blueberries like I did for my Blueberry tart will make it more tastier or even blueberry jam will help.
Cupcake Crazy Gem says
Thanks, yes from now on it’ll be milk chocolate chunks in the banana bread all the way! these cupcakes are so beautiful! I love the vivid purple tones. Bilberry powder – how unusual! what a shame the taste didn’t come through stronger but I love the idea of them. It’s certainly a great ‘B’ bake!
Caroline says
Gorgeous, gorgeous colour! And so much nicer to know it came from a natural product than a food colouring bottle. Pity the taste wasn’t stronger, but I suppose it means you’ll be able to marry it with other baking flavours more easily.
Green Dragonette says
These really caught my eye-you are clever coming up with such an idea!
Foodycat says
I love the colour! How strange that the taste wasn’t strong.
Janice says
Great colour from the wild bilberries. Pity the flavour wasn’t more pronounced, maybe including some blueberry jam would bring it out?
thelittleloaf says
Absolutely stunning recipe, I can imagine these taste even more incredible than they look! And so much better than using food dye – nature provides the best colours 🙂
Working london mummy says
These look stunning, and I love bilberries- in France known as myrtilles. Such an intense blue
Baking Addict says
Thanks for entering these to AlphaBakes. I love the colour! Great use of the sugar alphabets too. It’s a shame you couldn’t really taste the berries but at least CT did! 🙂
Clare says
They look beautiful! Fabulous colour!
Dom at Belleau Kitchen says
the stuff in the bowl… not the bowl itself you understand!
Dom at Belleau Kitchen says
I love the colour of the raw mix… I think I would have found it hard not to just stop at this stage and eat the bowl…
Lauralovescakes says
The colour is fab! I’ve used freeze dried raspberry powder before and it worked a treat! 🙂
Javelin Warrior says
Choclette – these are awesome! I love the color of the frosting and I can’t believe I’ve never heard of bilberries before. And I must find me some of that powder because it does such a beautiful job at adding eye appeal (and perhaps flavor?). Thanks so much for sharing with Made with Love Mondays – what a treat!
Jo says
What a brilliant colour! I love that it’s achieved naturally from fruit. The cupcakes look lovely un-iced too, although it’s a shame the flavour didn’t come through as strong as you had hoped.
Nom! The Indulgent Baking Blog says
I love how cute these look, such a lovely colour and good for you too? Major bonus!
Nom! x
Suelle says
What a gorgeous colour – it would make pretty macarons!
A Trifle Rushed says
What a wonderful shop to find. You are such a creative cook, these cakes not only look but also sound truly scrumptious. And I love your little letters labelling them 🙂 Jude x
shruti says
love the color…the cupcakes look so cute 🙂
Choclette says
Thank you Shruti
Jennifer says
I love these – such a beautiful colour and the bonus being all natural. I have to get myself some of this bilberry powder.
Choclette says
Thanks Jennifer, the bilberry powder was a great find.
Susie @ Fold in the Flour says
These look lovely, and I think the colour of the frosting looks fantastic. The best thing is that it’s totally natural from the bilberry powder! 🙂
Choclette says
Yes indeed Susie, that’s what I was so excited about.