THE origin of the cupcake may be unknown, but there’s no denying its success over the last few years.

Dianne Hammond of Bournemouth has been baking them for years and says they are still as popular as ever. “Ever since the Sex and the City film came out in 2010 their popularity just soared overnight,” she says.

“People love them because are individual, look pretty, you can change the colour of the cake, icing and sprinkles to create exciting and fun seasonal themed items and they also offer the convenience of grab and go snacking.”

Dianne is hosting a Cup Cake Camp day at the White Pepper Cookery School in Lytchett Minster on October 1.

It will be open to all ages to bake and ice cupcakes and also make chocolate truffles. For more information visit white-pepper.co.uk To celebrate National Cupcake Week, Will Torrent, an award-winning patissier and chocolatier, shares his favourite recipe for Eton Mess Cupcakes.

Eton Mess Cupcakes

Makes approximately 8

150g Golden Caster Sugar

250g Butter (200g for cake and 50g for buttercream)

4 Medium Eggs

80ml Semi-Skimmed Milk (50ml for cake and 30ml for buttercream)

100g Self Raising Flour

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

100g Ground Almonds

70g dried strawberry pieces (50g for cake and 20g for buttercream)

125g Icing Sugar

25g clotted cream

1 packet of meringue nests, broken into pieces

1 punnet fresh strawberries

Sugar coated fennel seeds

1. Pre-heat oven to 180oC, Gas Mark 4.

2. Beat the caster sugar and 200g of the butter in a food mixer on high speed using the beater attachment for 5 minutes.

3. Slowly beat the eggs, one at a time, and then 50ml milk.

4. Add the flour, vanilla extract, ground almonds and 50g of the dried strawberry pieces and mix thoroughly.

5. Spoon the mixture into cupcake moulds and bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 20 minutes until the tops of the cakes are even in colour and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

6. Allow the cakes to cool on a wire tray

7. Soften the rest of the butter in a bowl in an 850w microwave on high for 10 seconds, transfer to a food mixer and beat on high speed for 1 minute.

Slowly mix in the icing sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the mixture is smooth.

Add the rest of the milk & keep on whisking until light & creamy. Add the clotted cream

8. When the cakes are cool, using a piping bag with a star nozzle – pipe the clotted buttercream in the traditional way

9. Sprinkle the broken meringue pieces and wedges of fresh strawberry on top.

10. To finish sprinkle some sugar coated fennel seeds (which you can buy online or at Asian supermarkets). They look like hundreds and thousands but will give you an amazing new taste sensation.