Some things in life just go wonderfully together, avocado and salt, cheese and bread etc. One of my favourite flavour combinations of them all is chocolate and raspberry. The raspberry topping of these cakes is cool and creamy, without being overwhelmingly sour or sickly sweet. Plus, the pink icing is very beautiful and required absolutely no food colouring.

This recipe is another simple way of putting a smile on even the most serious of faces. (I personally like to cheer people up by making them biscuits or cupcakes and then holding them up to my face as eyes, it never fails).

Also, in the name of full disclosure, this recipe makes far too much icing, so I would recommend freezing any you have remaining.

To make a batch of 12 cupcakes you will need:

For the cakes

3 large eggs

170g caster sugar

170g butter

155g self raising flour

15g cocoa powder

For the icing

2 1/2 tablespoons icing sugar

250g mascarpone

About 150g raspberries (I used fresh, but frozen are fine, once defrosted)

2 Cadbury flakes or similar

Preheat the oven to 180°C, line a cupcake tin with cake cases.

Using an electric whisk beat your eggs and sugar until they leave a trail of mixture over the surface. Sift in your flour and cocoa powder and fold in.Melt your butter and fold in, until your mix is smooth.

Separate the mixture between the 12 cupcake cases. Bake these for approximately 12 minutes until the cakes have risen and are firm. Leave to cool.

While the cakes are cooling make your raspberry icing by whisking together the mascarpone, icing sugar and raspberries. The berries will soon disintegrate making everything a lovely colour. Using a butter knife cover your cakes, leaving a swirl of the icing.

Crumble over your chocolate flake and serve. Due to the mascarpone in these, keep refrigerated if you want them to keep more than a couple of days.