Cupcakes ate my Soul: Sometimes a cakey flavour is just staring you in the face...

So, I have my staple cake flavourings: Vanilla, chocolate, rose water, lemon, orange blossom, peppermint, strawberry, lavender and almond. But I'm tired of relying on the limited imagination of the flavour shelf in the supermarket. What if, for example, I want a blackcurrant and ginger flavoured cupcake but don't want to put whole blackberries and ginger bits in me cakes?! What then Dr. Oetker?

Well, I'll tell you what. You invest in some rather tasty cordials...

There's so many flavours! I tried out the 2 I happened to have in my kitchen because I figured they taste nice, and surely if I add a drop to some humble vanilla cake mix...I can make my cakes taste like the drinks...

So, observe my friends! Cordial Cakes :D

To begin, we have the humble vanilla mix in all its simple glory:

Next, choose your weapon...(cordial/flavoured drink) Basically anything like Ribena or those kinda drinks you add to water to make them taste rather nice.

Then! Add abooooout 2-3 tbsp of your chosen drink (this is for a 2 egg vanilla mix btw) BUT! Be warned, the amount of drinkage you add does depend on the strength of the drink, as the lime cordial wasn't that strong so it needed quite a lot of cordial (so I had to add more flour which as you shall see made me cakes turn out rather solid looking, but its all in the name of cake experimenting! Still edible of course...)

Anyway! So yes, before you go and add 3 tbsp of your drink, check for how strong it is. Because something like ribena is crazy strong so you might only need about 1 1/2 tbsp. You have been warned...

Really, it's about tasting it as you go. I mean I like quite strong flavours so I'd have quite happily poured an entire bottle of cordial into my mix, but I hear others arn't as partial to drinking straight cordial so best to play it safe and go for that 'hint' of flavour, rather than a smack in the face load of it :D

^ Lime ^

^ Blackcurrant and Ginger ^

Granted, this picture looks like mashed up intestines. But don't fear ladies and gents, for it does become the beautiful shade of lilac you may view below...

So here's the rather odd looking Lime cake you were warned about. It were quite dense inside but to be fair I did chuck a load of flour in the mix in a desperate attempt to save my mix from being like lime flavoured slop. But I've always found if any mix does get watery, just add another table spoon of butter, flour and sugar and that usually sorts the mix out and doesn't cause the ingredients to become insanely unbalanced.

Now here you have folks, what happens when you plop your mixture into cases without putting them into a cupcake tray! Love 'em or hate 'em all splayed it, I think they look rather interesting like that...(honestly, I only resorted to cooking them like this because I couldn't be bothered to make the long and trechorous 5 minute journey downstairs to find my cupcake pan...forgive me.)