The raga-muffin

Ragamuffins are a breed of cat, whose sweet nature must surely be represented by the fluffiest, most comforting, bakery-style muffin.

Credit: Hardie Grant Books / Ellis Parrinder

• makes

  16

• prep

  30 minutes

• cook

  20 minutes

• difficulty

  Mid

The secret of these is the combination of both butter and oil, which locks in moisture, and the acidity from the lemon juice/white wine vinegar, which reacts with the baking powder to give extra fluffiness and rise.

This base recipe is also extremely versatile (just like ragamuffin cats). You can vary the decoration on these cupcakes, using your favourite colours for the ragamuffin cat, and try out different sprinkles for different effects and facial expressions. You can add in any fresh or frozen berries that you have to hand, and switch up the flavours. Possibly best of all? This recipe requires just two bowls, so there’s minimal washing-up and no stand mixer needed. 

Ingredients

Muffins

• 250 ml (1 cup) whole milk
• 1 tbsp lemon juice or white wine vinegar
• 2½ tbsp (50 ml) vegetable oil (or any neutral-tasting oil)
• 60 g (¼ cup) butter, melted
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 3 medium eggs
• 300 g [2¼ cups] plain [all-purpose] flour (to make gluten-free, substitute with a gluten-free plain flour blend plus ½ tsp xanthan gum)
• 3 tsp baking powder (or gluten-free baking powder)
• 160 g caster or granulated sugar

 

American buttercream (see Note)

• 175 g salted butter, at room temperature, cubed (or vegan butter – use one that’s close to 80% fat content) OR unsalted butter and fine salt to taste
• 325 g (2⅓ cups) icing [confectioners’] sugar
• 1½ tsp vanilla bean paste
• 3-4 tsp milk (or plant-based milk, although you may find you need less milk – or none at all – if using vegan butter, as the buttercream is soft and spreadable enough already)
• gel food dyes (see Cat Tips)

To decorate

• black sugar strand sprinkles, or similar, for whiskers (or you can pipe them in black buttercream – see instructions)
• edible eye sprinkles (optional – you can also pip e these with black buttercream)

Makes around 16 muffins (may vary slightly depending on size of muffin cases and if any berries are added).

Optional chilling time: 20-30 minutes in the freezer or at least one hour in the fridge (you can skip this if short on time). 

Can be made gluten-free.

Cooling time: about 1 hour.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C [400°F/Gas mark 6] (unless you are chilling your batter – see step 5 – in which case preheat the oven later). Line muffin tins with 16 paper cases (if you have large tins then this recipe will make fewer muffins, and if your tins are smaller, the recipe will make more).
2. Pour the milk into a large bowl, then add the lemon juice or vinegar on top and mix. Add the oil, melted butter, salt and vanilla, then add the eggs and whisk with a balloon whisk until combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour (plus xanthan gum, if using gluten-free flour), baking powder and caster sugar together.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and whisk until just combined.
5. For extra fluffy and tall muffins, chill the batter in the freezer for 20–30 minutes, or in the fridge for at least 1 hour, but if you’re in a rush you can skip this step and they will still turn out incredible.
6. Fill each muffin case with the batter until they are three-quarters full. Bake for around 20 minutes, or until risen, golden and firm on top and a skewer inserted into the centre doesn’t have any wet batter clinging to it. When baked, transfer the muffins to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
7. Meanwhile, for the buttercream, add the butter and icing sugar to a large bowl, then use an electric whisk to beat together for 5–10 minutes. Make sure to keep whisking until it is light, fluffy and very pale in colour (see Cat Tip). Add the vanilla and whisk again. Then, add the milk to soften the consistency so that it can be easily spread and piped, and finally the gel food dyes.
8. Place around 3 tsp of buttercream in a small bowl and colour it pink, then place 3 tsp of the buttercream in another bowl and colour black. Put both into separate piping (pastry) bags fitted with small round piping tips, or just cut the end so there’s a small opening to pipe details.
9. Spoon 1½ tbsp of the white buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a medium piping tip, or cut the tip to a medium size (this is for piping the ears and nose and mouth area). Put the remaining white buttercream into another piping bag fitted with a grass piping tip.
10. If any of the cupcakes were overfilled or domed too much, just use a serrated knife to trim the top so that you have a flat surface to pipe onto.”
11. Using the largest piping bag fitted with the grass piping tip, pipe strands of white buttercream to look like fur, starting from the centre of the muffins and working outwards. Use the smaller piping bag with white buttercream to pipe on the ears, making sure to bring the ears to a point.
12. Pipe pink buttercream for the centre of the ears and for a little nose, then pipe on eyes and a mouth using the black buttercream. Or use edible eye sprinkles for the eyes. Use black sprinkles (or more buttercream) for the whiskers. Colour extra buttercream and pipe for different accessories, or add sprinkles of your choice.
13. Store in an airtight container for 3 days, or in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week. As with most cakes, this is best eaten at room temperature.

Notes

• For different flavours in the cupcakes, try adding a scant ⅓ cup of any freeze-dried fruit pieces or powder, the grated zest of a lemon or orange, and/or some fresh or frozen berries – just coat a few berries in flour and push into the top of the cupcake just before baking.

• The buttercream above is a half-quantity of the recipe in the book. The full recipe makes  a large quantity which can be used to fill, ice (frost) and decorate a large cake with buttercream cats. This buttercream is simply flavoured with vanilla bean paste, but you can add and customise with any flavours you like. Try lemon or orange zests, rose water, orange blossom water, freeze-dried fruit, fruit purées, or extracts such as almond, and many more.

• American buttercream is the one you will likely be most fur-miliar with. This buttercream is very sweet, quick to make and delicious. However, you could also use an Italian meringue buttercream to decorate these muffins.

Cat Tips

• If you’re new to making buttercream, then whisk and KEEP whisking for longer than you think it needs until it’s definitely no longer becoming fluffier and lighter in colour. It should become noticeably lighter in colour – almost white.

• You can use oil- or water-based food dyes, but oil-based dyes often mix better and produce more vibrant colours for us when we’re in buttercream form, due to the high fat content. This is even more noticeable with Italian meringue buttercream than American style.

Recipe from Bake Me a Cat by Kim-Joy, published by Quadrille. (RRP HB $32.99). Photography by Ellis Parrinder.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

The secret of these is the combination of both butter and oil, which locks in moisture, and the acidity from the lemon juice/white wine vinegar, which reacts with the baking powder to give extra fluffiness and rise.

This base recipe is also extremely versatile (just like ragamuffin cats). You can vary the decoration on these cupcakes, using your favourite colours for the ragamuffin cat, and try out different sprinkles for different effects and facial expressions. You can add in any fresh or frozen berries that you have to hand, and switch up the flavours. Possibly best of all? This recipe requires just two bowls, so there’s minimal washing-up and no stand mixer needed.