Goat Cheese Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling

 It seems to me that the new trend in cooking these days is making something with ingredients that do not usually go in it. People make a lot of cakes with beans in them, chicken with blueberries etc. The funny thing about these wacky baked goods is that it seems that people are usually trying to hide these funky ingredients in the finished product. “Don’t worry, you can’t actually taste the beets in my famous beet cupcakes”

I decided to take a stab at this new fad, but actually try and make something that you could taste the ingredients in and not be too weirded out. In steps the goat cheese. We have all heard of putting sour cream in your cupcakes, or cream cheese icing – so this is like that but in a more extreme way. They turned out really well. So well in fact that my sister asked that I make some for her for her birthday. For hers I added the jam – a little extra sweet kick in the middle of the cupcake – a birthday surprise for her twenty-year old tongue.

Goat Cheese Cupcakes with Raspberry Filling

For the cupcakes:

2 ¼ cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 stick butter

1 ¾ cups sugar

½ cup sour cream

½ cup (about half a log) goat cheese – room temp

4 egg whites

1 tsp vanilla extract

cupcake liners

1 jar of raspberry jam, or fresh raspberries if in season

For the icing:

¾ stick butter at room temp

½ cup (the other half of the log) goat cheese (plus a little extra if you want it to be seriously zingy) – room temp

1 cup icing (confectioners) sugar

Preheat oven to 375. Combine dry ingredients (through salt). In a separate bowl combine the wet ingredients (through vanilla). Mix well. Sometimes the goat cheese is a tiny bit lumpy, and that’s okay. Just not big clumps.

Pour into cupcake liners until almost half full. Then spoon a teaspoon of jam, or one plump raspberry, right onto the batter. Then fill the rest up until the liner is just over ¾ full. Bake for 18-25 mins.

While they are baking prepare the icing. Mix everything together in a bowl and pop it in the fridge with a knife until the cupcakes are cool. Ice with a cold knife – makes it much easier.