White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting: Sweets for Your Sweetiepie Week!

Hello everyone!

Welcome to another themed week of goodies: Sweets for Your Sweetiepie Week!!!

Our lovely team of rock star bloggers have put their heads together to ensure that you have a recipe to make for your loved ones this Valentines Day!

If you’ve been tuning in for a while, you know that I get amped up over any holiday and V-Day is no exception. I love an excuse to give out hugs, tell people I care about them, and most importantly to binge on chocolate and wine. This year I am in class all night, so my celebration will have to wait until the weekend. Luckily, my class is Human Sexuality, which is the most exciting class you could have on Valentines Day. 😉 I’m hoping we talk about something upbeat like fetishes or swinger parties, and not erectile dysfunction or supernumerary nipples.  Ok wait, both of those topics are great too.  I guess I’m super excited for class!  Maybe I’ll become a sex therapist?!

Anyway, I made these treats so we could enjoy ourselves all week long!

Jonathan is not a huge dessert fan, usually because he claims they are too “sweet”. But his favorite sweet to indulge in is white chocolate. We were recently at a party with a make-your-own-cupcake bar (GENIUS) and I spotted Jonathan helping himself to a few different varieties, which inspired these White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting.

Can you think of a better combo than white chocolate and raspberry? I cannot.

For the cupcakes you will need:

• 1 stick butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 oz. white chocolate bar
• 8 oz. white chocolate chips (a smidge more than 1/2 bag)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a cupcake pan or use these adorable cupcake wrappers for V-day!

Cream together butter and sugar.  Add the vanilla and eggs until smooth.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the 4 oz. white chocolate bar and milk.  White chocolate has a funny way of melting, which is to say it doesn’t melt well.  It gets kind of runny and chunky, but pay that no attention.

Ghirardelli FTW!

Slowly combine the flour mixture with the butter and sugar mixture until smooth.  Try not to whip the crap out of your batter because it will harden your cupcakes.  Nobody wants a cement cupcake.  Be GENTLE!

Slowly add the melted chocolate mixture to the batter until creamy.  Then add your 8 oz. of chocolate chips.

The extra white chocolate chips tossed in at the end really give this recipe an extra oompf of creamy white chocolate flavor!

Double white chocolate intensity

Pour the batter into the greased cupcake pan.

Bake at 375 degrees for 16-18 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let the cupcakes cool completely before moving to the frosting stage.

For the frosting you will need:

• 1 1/2 stick butter
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 Tbsp heavy whipping cream
• pinch of salt
• 3 Tbsp raspberry jam

Whip together butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, whipping cream, and pinch of salt until it looks like frosting (about 30 seconds on high).

Then add the raspberry jam and mix it into the frosting with a rubber scraper.  If you are lucky, your friend Jeanne from Inside NanaBread’s Head will send you a giant jar of delicious homemade raspberry, cranberry, and cherry jam for you to use in this recipe. If you aren’t lucky, you will walk with your head hung in shame to the grocery store to get sub par jam.

Thank you, Jeanne!

If raspberries are in season, it might be fun to make a raspberry compote to use in the frosting instead of jarred jam. I didn’t do this because raspberries were $4 when I created this recipe.

Spread the frosting evenly over the cupcakes and top with fresh raspberries or sprinkles.  These cupcakes were divine and got the stamp of approval from the hubby and my coworkers!  Num!

White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

What are you making for Valentine’s Day this year?  What are your plans this holiday?

-Mads

Please check out the rest of the sweets on other blogs throughout the week! These bloggers are fearless bakers and make me drool on a daily basis. I hope you find something you want to make for your sweetheart!

Sunday:

• Inside NanaBread’s Head–Retro Raspberry Divinity (& GIVEAWAY)
• Comfortably Domestic–Red Velvet Vanilla Marble Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Buttercream

Monday:

• Kvetchin’ Kitchen–Chocolate-Dipped Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies
• The Hill Country Cook–Mini Meringue Strawberry Pie

Tuesday:

• Munching in the Mitten–Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti
• Bakeaholic Mama–Samoa Crack Dip

Wednesday:

• Climbing Grier Mountain–Avocado Peppermint Chocolate Mousse
• Country Cleaver–Cherry Garcia Chocolate Bark

Thursday:

• My post above–White Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting
• Tenaciously Yours–S’more on a Stick

Friday:

• Decadent Philistines Save the World–Lemon Marshmallows
• Comfortably Domestic–Mini Chocolate Mousse Pies

Saturday:

• From My Sweet Heart–Berry Smoothie Ice Cream