Brown Sugar Cupcakes with Daim Buttercream

We have decamped to the North this week to stay with my parents and I wanted to bake something to tempt my slim, health-conscious mum into eating cake.  She's always had a weakness for Daims and I have been trying for some time to think of an icing to go with my brown sugar cupcakes....ping, light bulb!
Vanilla sponge cupcakes made with light brown muscovado sugar instead of the usual white have a lovely subtle toffee flavour which goes very well with the butterscotch chocolateyness (possibly not a word) of the Daim Bar.  Having said that, these are made using the mini Daims....same thing only smaller and higher chocolate to crunchy butterscotch ratio!

Ingredients

125g Soft Butter (spreadable is easier)

125g Light Muscovado Sugar

150g Self-Raising Flour

2 Large Eggs

1 tspn Vanilla Extract

1 tspn Baking Powder

1 tbsp Milk

For the icing -

50g Soft Butter

100g Icing Sugar (Golden if you have it)

1-2 tbsp Milk

140g bag of Mini Daims

• Preheat the oven to 175C (fan)
• In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, flour, vanilla extract, milk and baking powder and give it all a good whisk until pale golden and smooth.  (Tip - if the mixture looks to be separating slightly around the edges whisk in a little more flour, it depends on the size of your eggs)
• Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases (it should make 14 cupcakes, more if using smaller fairy cake cases).
• Bake in the pre-heated oven for 12 (ish) minutes until firm to the touch and risen.  Put on a rack or plate to cool totally.
• Unwrap all of the mini Daims and chop half of them up into small chunks for sprinkling.  The other half need to be smashed up, either in a mini-chopper or put in a double food bag and bash up with a rolling pin.
• In a small mixing bowl, whisk the butter, milk and icing sugar together until pale and creamy then add the smashed up Daims and whisk some more.  Taste and, if the icing seems at all greasy, whisk in some more icing sugar until fluffy.
• Generously smother the cool cupcakes with the icing and sprinkle with the crunchy pieces of Daim.
• Display them on a plate or cake stand and admire for a few minutes...then eat and say 'Mmmmm' whilst nodding approvingly.