You know when you get an idea in your head and you just can’t let it go? Well, Irn Bru Cupcakes were my most recent obsessive idea! For whatever reason, I set myself a mission to turn Scotland’s number 1 soft drink into something I could bake & enjoy. And let me tell you, it wasn’t an easy task!
2018 EDITED TO ADD: As many people in Scotland are now aware, Irn Bru have changed there classic recipe to reduce the sugar content. I have yet to trial this recipe since the change to Irn Bru but will do so in time, making any necessary amendments.
Maybe I was naive in thinking that baking with fizzy juice (soda, ginger, pop, whatever your regional name for the stuff is!) would be straight forward. I mean, I’ve seen the odd Root Beer cupcakes, Cola brownies & Cream Soda cake over on Pinterest so really, how hard could it be? Well it turns out that the majority of recipes using fizzy juice also use American boxed cake mix and the reviews alongside them are never that great. So how could I get that authentic Irn Bru flavour to transfer into baked goods? For a while I did consider buying the Soda Stream syrup version of Irn Bru (Highland Fizz
in case you’re wondering) but reviewers on Amazon tell me that, like many Irn Bru rip offs, it doesn’t have the real Irn Bru taste. Back to the drawing board! Then one evening when I was doing something completely unrelated, it hit me… Why not make my own Irn Bru syrup? Fast forward a few days and there I was standing in my kitchen, boiling a 2 litre bottle of Irn Bru, texting Granny saying, “You know when you’re 50% sure you have a good idea & 50% sure you’re completely mad?”
Thankfully though, it worked!
So in advance of baking these little Scottish cupcakes, you’ll need to prep your own Irn Bru Syurp as follows…
• Buy your Irn Bru
. It must be the full sugar version as the diet ones won’t reduce to a syrup. I used a 2 litre bottle which gave me enough to experiment but a 500ml would suffice (& save time) if you’re only using it for one batch of cupcakes.
• Place your Irn Bru into a pot large enough to hold it & bring it to the boil.
• Boil until the Irn Bru reduces to around a 10th of it’s original volume. It took around 2.5 hours for 2 litres to reduce down to 200ml but obviously the less Irn Bru you use, the less time it’ll take.
• Once it’s ready it’ll be a thin syrup consistency and a deep orange colour. Remember it will be very hot and as such will be a bit thicker once it cools down.
And there you have it! Your very own Irn Bru syrup, ready to bake into cupcakes. The process of using this syrup was a bit of trial & error with a couple of failed attempts but this final recipes has a very light Irn Bru taste to the sponge, as it was difficult to get the balance between flavour & texture, but a good whack of flavour in the icing to really make these Irn Bru cupcakes taste Phenomenal!
Let us know if you try your hand at baking Irn Bru Cupcakes!
Irn Bru Cupcakes
PRINT RECIPEINGREDIENTS
For the Cupcakes
- 120 g Plain Flour
- 100 g Caster Sugar
- 1½ tsp Baking Powder
- 40 g Butter at room temperature
- 100 ml Milk
- 1 Egg
- 4 tbsp Irn Bru Syrup
For the Icing
- 300 g Icing Sugar
- 75 g Butter at room temperature
- 4-5 tbsp Irn Bru Syrup
- Orange Food Colouring optional
INSTRUCTIONS
For the Cupcakes
- Pre-heat your oven to 170°c and line your muffin tray with 8-10 cupcake cases.
- Sift the flour, sugar & baking powder into a large bowl. Add the butter and mix on a medium speed until the mixture resembles a sandy consistency.
- Gradually add half the milk to the mixture. Whisk the egg & syrup into the remaining milk and again gradually add to the other ingredients. Mix until only combined - do not over mix!
- Using an ice cream scoop, fill your cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake for around 20 minutes until a skewer comes out the cupcakes clean.
- When cool enough to touch, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
For the Icing
- Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl, add the butter and mix on a slow-medium speed with a clean tea towel over your mixer to prevent your kitchen filling with icing sugar!
- When the butter & sugar start to come together, gradually add your Irn Bru syrup a spoonful at a time. Continue to mix until completely combined and of a light & fluffy consistency. If you want a deeper orange colour then you can add a dab of orange food colouring also.
- Pipe on to your cupcakes when they're completely cool and sprinkle with a little blue sugar if desired.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
All my recipes are developed using a digital scale and the metric system (grams and millilitres). Cup measurements are available as a conversion but these, unfortunately, won't always be as accurate. For best results, I always recommend baking with a digital scale.
RECIPE NOTES:
Instructions for creating your Irn Bru syrup can be found at Baking with Granny.
Tried this recipe?Tag @bakingwithgranny or use the hashtag #bakingwithgranny!
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14 responses
Wow! Just look at the fabulous colour the irn bru brings to the frosting – great choice of paper cases to house them in :-) This sounds a great idea and so much fun.
Angela x
Thanks, Angela. These are quite possibly the brightest cupcakes I’ve ever baked!
I have an unreasonable craving for Irn Bru now! That cupcake looks soo good. The colour is awesome!
Thanks, Laura. I’m very familiar with the cravings for Irn Bru – and when it comes, nothing else will do!
Flipping Hek, You have just taken cupcakes to a whole new level. You are too cool!
Thanks, Helen. Cupcakes are definitely the most fun to experiment with!
Great thniikng! That really breaks the mold!
Hoping this works! Promised it for my sister’s birthday tomorrow and she will do with nothing else :O.
Looking for some help! Just tried this and I think I boiled the Irn Bru a tad too long! Didn’t seem to be thickening so kept going until it looked syrupy and took it off the heat. It just ended up really thick though and pretty much solidified on contact with the other ingredients! Where am I going wrong? I’m not a baker as you can probably tell…just fancied trying these for Burns Night next week.
Hello Vicki. It does sound like you’ve maybe over boiled the Irn Bru. There’s a fine balance between perfect and over-done so I’d recommend taking it away from the heat before you think it’s ready (not not quite full on syrup) as it will always thicken up a bit when it starts to cool. It’s all about trial and error though so don’t be disheartened!
I’m going to give these a go…
How long will the syrup keep if I make it in advance ?
I don’t have a brown thumb at all and rarely bake cakes or even cupcakes. I am doing it now I had a bit of help with instructions so far so good. Not easy for a person who doesn’t bake anything that doesn’t come out of a box. Irn Bru syrup was the easiest thing it doesn’t say how much food colouring so I might have overdone that. Probably going to be a new traditional one other than my chocolate frangoa cake which have done first time as cupcakes. it’s boxed cake with orange zest but not any orange a mineola tangelo orange that it half orange and half blood orange that tastes lemony. I got a different similar hybrid meyer it wasn’t the same. Melt a large bar of plain chocolate whatever flavour you like. poke holes in cake with chopstick and pour over chocolate and zest mix and marinate overnight .
How do you make the syrup
As a Canadian girl with Scottish blood, I can’t begin to tell you how overjoyed I was to find this recipe. I first tasted Irn Bru when I visited Scotland as a child, and have been in love with it ever since.
We don’t have the large bottles of Bru here, but I was able to get a 4-pack of cans in the international aisle at my local grocery store. One 330 ml can yields approximately 4 tablespoons of syrup when boiled, so I used 2 of them (3, if you count the one I drank while baking the cupcakes).
I was nervous about making the syrup, as I have never worked with pop before, but it turned out perfectly. I will definitely make these again.