Vietnamese Coffee Cupcakes – Recipe

When my friend at Com In cafe gifted me a bag of lovely Vietnamese coffee, I knew I had to bake with it. I'm a huge fan of Vietnamese coffee with plenty of condensed milk... so I decided to recreate it in cupcake form.

This is essentially a coffee cupcake with Russian buttercream – which is made with only condensed milk and vanilla. The Vietnamese coffee gives it the right sort of bitter-rich edge, so make sure you use a similar kind of dark strong roast if you can't get your hands on it.

Ready? Let's go.

Ingredients for Cupcakes:

170g unsalted butter, softened
170g caster sugar
3 eggs
170g self raising flour
100ml strongly-brewed Vietnamese coffee

Ingredients for Russian Buttercream:

225 unsalted butter, softened
Half a can of condensed milk (about 200g)
Pinch of salt

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth, followed by the eggs. Now whisk in the rest of the ingredients until just combined and fluffy.

3. Divide equally between twelve cupcake cases in cupcake pans, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the cakes spring back when you poke them gently. Now cool completely on a wire rack.

4. To make the buttercream, whisk the butter in a large bowl until fluffy and pale, and gradually add the condensed milk with the salt, until well combined.

5. Pipe on top of the cooled cupcakes, and decorate as you like. I had some roasted whole coffee beans, which make a nice crunchy topping and cut through the sweetness of the buttercream nicely.

Enjoy, and have fun.

And of course my friends got some cupcakes too.