National Cupcake Week 2013: Our favourite cupcake recipes

Preheat the oven to 180C

Beat the butter and 300g of sugar together, before stirring in the honey and ginger

Liquidise the yoghurt, bananas, eggs and almond essence together until smooth, before mixing in with the flour and 2 tablespoons of wheatgerm

Add small amounts of the yoghurt mixture to the creamed butter, alternating with the flour, and stir until evenly mixed

Spoon into paper cases

Mix together the remaining sugar, wheatgerm and hazelnuts and sprinkle onto your cakes.

Bake for 25 minutes

Leave to cool… and enjoy

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF

Fry the bacon rashers in 1 teaspoon of oil until crisp. Leave to cool, before crumbling into sprinkles and leaving to one side

In a bowl, combine together flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt.

Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in one egg, followed by half the dry ingredients, mixing well before adding the second egg and the remaining dry ingredients. Again, mix well, and then add the yoghurt and maple syrup, beating and folding to give a smooth batter.

Pop the mixture into cupcake cases and bake in the oven for around 20 minutes.

In the meantime, make the buttercream icing by blitzing butter, icing sugar and maple syrup together until smooth.

Cool your cupcakes, top with the buttercream and sprinkle on the bacon. Perfect!

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Heat butter and cola in a saucepan until the butter is melted.

In a large bowl sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa then add the sugar and mix well.

Add the cola mix, then the milk and the beaten eggs. Mix until smooth.

Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for 25 - 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make your frosting; mix icing sugar with cola and beat until smooth

Using a piping bag, swirl on top of the cooled cupcake and decorate with fizzy cola bottle sweets or popping candy for fizz.

Preheat the oven to 170C

Mix the flour, sugar and baking powder together in a food processor, add the butter and blend thoroughly

Whisk the melted chocolate, egg and milk together in a jug before stirring into the flour mixture

Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases and bake for 15-20 minutes

Meanwhile, mix the orange juice and granulated sugar together in a bowl, before pouring over your just-outta-the-oven cupcakes set aside to cool completely.

Next, beat the remaining butter in a bowl until light and fluffy

Carefully stir in the icing sugar and continue to beat for five minutes

Beat in the milk, melted chocolate and orange zest.

Use this buttercream mixture to decorate your cupcakes.

Preheat the oven to 170C

Mix the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in one bowl and, in a second bowl, whisk up the kahlua and coffee. The third bowl is for blending your butter and caster sugar up in!

Add the egg whites to your third bowl one at a time and mix well, before adding your milk, not to mention the mixtures from your other two bowls. Stir it up!

Bake for 20 minutes and leave to cool

Meanwhile, heat up cream and butter in a small saucepan until bubbles appear, before adding the white melted chocolate. Stir well, add kahlua and chill for an hour

Core out the centre of your cupcakes and spoon in your filling

Next, take caster sugar and add to egg whites in a heatproof bowl, place over simmering water and whisk until sugar dissolves

Transfer into electric miser and whisk until stiff and bright white

Divide butter into 8 blocks, reduce speed on mixer and add a little block of butter at a time until all of it has been used

Mix in the kahlua (add more if you fancy a properly boozy treat)

Finally, pop your kahlua mix into a piping bag and use to top each cupcake with a swirl of buttercream