Chocolate inspired Cupcakes

Oh cupcakes! I think I would already have abs if it wasn’t for cupcakes. But what would life be without cake! Let’s be realistic I’m never going to give up cake and chocolate. I really need to get going with finding the perfect healthy cupcake recipe… however I doubt it will ever come close to a fluffy, soft, spongy cupcake.

As everyone knows my love of baking and cupcakes, my birthday presents this year obviously reflected this. I received a gorgeous big heavy mixing bowl, the beautiful cake stand above, multiple molds and tools as well as a cupcake book full of exciting recipes. I think one of the things I love most above cupcakes is how versatile they can be; any flavour, any combination; any toppings!

For my birthday last month the theme was cupcakes and champagne… perfection! So I spent most of the Saturday morning baking about 40 cupcakes. I hadn’t yet received my cupcake book so came up with some flavours of my own; Malteser, Oreo and Rolo. You can see them all above. They were all super simple to make but very tasty. To make them I used my simple vanilla cupcake recipe and then did the following;

Malteser Cupcake

Bash up a load of Mastesers into medium sized chunks. Mix this Malteser dust into the cake mixture. Bake the cakes as normal, then ice them with vanilla icing once cool. To finish top the cupcake with a Malteser.

Oreo Cupcake

Bake the cake  as normal, the magic happens with the icing in this cake. Bash up mini Oreos into a thin dust… make sure there are no large chunks otherwise the icing doesn’t come out of the icing tube. Once you have your Oreo dust mix into buttercream icing and pipe it onto the top of your cakes. To finish top the cakes with a mini Oreo. These cupcakes were the biggest hit with my guests.

Rolo Cupcakes

Part bake your cake mixture then after 10 minute bring the cakes out of the oven and gently push a mini rolo into the centre of each of them. Place the cakes back into the oven to finishing baking. Once cool, ice with buttercream icing. To finish top with a mini Rolo and if you have  it drizzle with caramel sauce.

What is your favourite cupcake flavour? Tell me some interesting recipes and I’ll give them a go!

Check out Jennifer's gorgeous, cute and fun lifestyle blog Infinitely Charming. Full of beauty, crafts, fitness, life and more; all with Jennifer's humorous edge on top... what's not to love.

Nutella Melt Cupcakes

 

It seems to becoming a bit of a habit of mine these baking posts. I do actually post quite often, as we have a weekly “Cake Day” at work. I also come from a long line of cake bakers. My mum bakes, my Nana bakes, my Great Grandma bakes and my Grampy bakes. There is very rarely a time when there isn’t cake around in one of my family member’s homes… which is of course very homely but not great for the waist line! Hence the mountains of running I now do!

On Friday night I came in from work and had the urge to bake. So Friday night I took over the kitchen, turned the music up and came up with the idea of Nutella Melt Cupcakes. I had a jar in the cupboard and thought it would be a great addition to my usual vanilla cupcakes.

I wanted to have a Nutella melting middle and was unsure how to go about this. I decided to make the cake mix, place that in the Cupcake moulds then add a dollop of Nutella in the middle and finally another spoonful of cake mix. This turns out not to be the answer. As you can see from pictures above the Nutella sunk to the bottom of the cakes. They are still yummy, but a little messy to eat! Next time I will be adding the Nutella to the cake after its been baked, either by scooping out the top and adding the Nutella before topping with icing, or try piping the Nutella into the middle. Anyways here’s my recipe for a simple vanilla cupcake, which you can alter as you wish!

You will need(makes 12 small, or 6 large cupcakes like above) ;

Cake Mix- 110g butter, 110g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 1tsp vanilla extract, 110g self-raising flour, 1-2 tbsp milk

Buttercream Icing- 140g butter, 280g icing sugar, 1-2 tbsp milk

Preheat your oven to 180c/ Gas 4 and line your muffin tin with paper cases. Cream your butter and sugar together in a bowl until smooth and pale. Beat in the eggs gradually and stir in the vanilla extract.

Fold in the flour, adding a little milk until the mixture is of a dropping consistency. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases. Now bake in the oven for 10-15 minute of until they are golden-brown on the top and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Set to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

For your icing, beat the bitter in a large bowl until soft, then add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Now add the remaining icing sugar with one tbsp of milk, add more milk if necessary. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. If you want to make the above cake, mix a coupe of tbsp of Nutella into your icing sugar.

If you want to make the Nutella melt cake above, before icing your cakes, scoop out the top of them, as you would when making butterfly cakes and place the Nutella into the hole on the top of the cake. Then ice your cakes as you would normally.

What do you think of my Nutella Melt Cupcakes? Do you love Nutella as much as I do?