Traipsing around a dimly lit mansion with a flashlight. Knocking on castle walls for secret passageways while keeping one’s hairstyle intact. Looking for clues in an antique filled manor house. Yes, please! In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a Nancy Drew fan.
You probably have guessed that I love novels in the romance genre, but I am also a huge mystery buff! My love of sleuthing began at an early age with the Nancy Drew book series. I loved cracking open a new volume starring the redheaded amateur detective teen. She smartly, while looking quite stylish, threaded all the clues together to figure out the enigma at hand.
In The Quest of the Missing Map our sleuth is wrapped up in a treasure hunt. She chicly braves danger and has quite an adventure. Inspired by her desire to get to the heart of the matter, I created these Mystery Cupcakes. Hidden inside each one is a delicious raspberry. Now that treasure is a reason to follow all the clues!
I had such a fun time coming up with my Nancy Drew cupcakes, that I wanted a special drink to serve with them. In The Secret of Shadow Ranch she enjoys “iced fresh fruit.” This became my inspiration for the fruit infused ice tea in the photo.
Hopefully you are ready to hunt down a fork and dig in!
Cupcake Decoration
Pale rainbow edible glitter
5-7 strawberries
20-22 raspberries
2 kiwis
1 pint blueberries
Vanilla Cupcakes
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Place rack in the middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Next, in a large bowl, combine the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Then add in the rest of the ingredients, and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Pour the batter into lined cupcake pans.
Bake for 18-20 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cool so you can frost and decorate.
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup unsalted Irish butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
First, with an electric mixer, beat the vanilla extract and butter in a medium bowl. Then slowly mix in the powdered sugar, and beat. Now pour in the milk. Lastly, using the electric mixer, beat the mixture until it is smooth and fluffy.
Now, with a grapefruit spoon (has a serrated edge), scoop out little wells in the centers of all cupcakes. Make it large enough to put a raspberry in but not too big, you don’t want to weaken the cupcake. Pop a raspberry into each empty center.
Next decorate each cupcake with frosting, hiding the raspberry. Sprinkle on the edible glitter. Then slice or cut the strawberries, kiwis and the remaining raspberries. Arrange this fruit on the top of each cupcake. Add a blueberry to each top as well. Garnish serving plates with the remaining blueberries.
Makes 14 cupcakes
Note: If you prefer an easier version use store bought cake mix and frosting. Or…just pick up undecorated cupcakes and embellish them yourself!
Cold Brewed Fruit Infused Ice Tea
Ingredients
4 cups cold water
4 rounded teaspoons loose leaf English Breakfast tea (or 4 teabags)
1/2 sliced lime
6 sliced strawberries
1 sliced kiwi
First put 4 teaspoons of loose tea into tea filter bags and place in a pitcher, or use tea bags instead. Next add the fruit. Then pour in the water. Now cover and refrigerate for about eight hours. I like to remove the tea after three hours.
Serve over ice. If you plan on having some later, be sure not to keep fruit in the tea for more than 12 hours.
