Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream icing

Mmmm, chocolate buttercream. Just imagine your teeth sinking through the smooth richness of the buttercream before coming into contact with the soft, moist and yielding cake. Well, why aren't you in the kitchen already then? Oh, right, you need the recipe first!

I have a small confession to make. This recipe was a rescue effort (a successful one I hasten to add) due to a lack of care and attention on my part. I had halved the recipe from a printed one I was following, but inadvertently forgot to halve the melted butter component, realising as I poured the butter into the mixture and looked at a pool of melted butter forming that something had gone wrong. So, making the best of a bad job, I added a little more flour to soak up the excess butter and the rescue was complete. No-one other than me (and, well, you now!) was any the wiser as they still tasted great. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say, and having added extra butter to the cake mix I decided to go for full-on buttercream topping for these beauties.

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream icing

Ingredients
2 large eggs
85g caster sugar
75g self raising flour
18g cocoa powder
90g butter, melted
1/2 tbsp hot water

For the buttercream icing
75g butter

150g icing sugar, sifted

50g dark chocolate, melted

Method
- Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4. Put 9 muffin cases into a muffin tin. Alternatively grease a 9 hole friand pan.
- Beat eggs in a bowl with an electric mixer for about 5 minutes until thick and creamy. Beat in the sugar a tbsp at a time until dissolved.
- Fold in the sifted flour and cocoa, the butter and the hot water.
- Divide between the cases. They won't be very full but it doesn't matter.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes until the cakes spring back when touched lightly. Remove from tin/pan to a wire rack to cool.

For the buttercream icing, cream the butter and icing sugar together with an electric whisk until very light and fluffy. Add the melted chocolate and continue to beat until the mixture is very pale. Transfer to a piping bag with the nozzle of your choice on it, and pipe to your heart's content.

I used 85% cocoa chocolate to try and make the icing a little less sickly sweet. I'm sure 70% would also work well though.

These have a lighter, more open texture than the recipe without the extra butter and flour, presumably due to the presence of extra raising agent in the flour.

Naked cupcakes before receiving their complement of rich buttercream. They have risen a little more than the original recipe ones, but not so much as to make icing them difficult.

Needless to say, these disappeared in a trice at work - diet be gone!!

Chocolate peppermint cupcakes

Sometimes only chocolate will do. This was one of those times. I find that the tried and tested combinations are best - chocolate works really well with mint, ginger, dried cherries and cranberries, raspberries etc (obviously not all at the same time!). I'm not a fan of weird and wacky combinations - I was going to give an example, but to be honest, when you love chocolate that much, it goes with most things!

However, chocolate and mint are a match made in heaven as far as I'm concerned. I decided that a fairly light chocolate cake topped with an intensely minty sweet icing would be good.

These are a little different from standard cupcake sponge cakes, as they start out by whisking the eggs until they are creamy and voluminous. I used a recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly 'Cupcakes and Cookies' book. So without further ado, here is the recipe:

Chocolate cupcakes with mint icing

Ingredients

2 large eggs

85g caster sugar

50g self raising flour

18g cocoa powder

45g butter, melted

1/2 tbsp hot water

For the icing

Icing sugar

Mint essence

Hot water

Method

- Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4. Put 9 muffin cases into a muffin tin. Alternatively grease a 9 hole friand pan.

- Beat eggs in a bowl with an electric mixer for about 5 minutes until thick and creamy. Beat in the sugar a tbsp at a time until dissolved.

- Fold in the sifted flour and cocoa, the butter and the hot water.

- Divide between the cases. They won't be very full but it doesn't matter.

- Bake for 12-15 minutes until the cakes spring back when touched lightly. Remove from tin/pan to a wire rack to cool.

When cool make the icing. I didn't bother measuring the icing sugar for this, it's just a case of mixing as much as you think it needs. I wanted quite a thick layer of icing. For part of the liquid component use the mint extract. I used this one, which is deliciously intense. Start by adding a small amount and then keep tasting. I used a tsp.

You can see that the cake is deliciously dark and chocolatey inside, with quite a close texture.

Naked cupcakes waiting for their icing coat. They have risen quite a bit, but haven't got a domed top, which is ideal for adding a layer of icing.

These went really well, with good reviews.

Vanilla Oat Shortbread Biscuits

When I saw these on Maria's blog, The Goddess's Kitchen, I thought they looked really lovely - buttery, oaty, crunchy and easy to make too. Instantly made it onto the 'to bake really soon' list. And so I did. The recipe is originally from Rachel Allen's book 'Bake' (which I have so far resisted the temptation to buy - I may not last much longer) and I halved the given recipe as I don't want shortbread coming out of my ears, no matter how lovely it is. Although actually, this shortbread really is lovely. I sometimes find that shortbread is too rich and buttery, but the addition of oats really helps - the oats give a lovely texture and flavour (and oats are good for you, don't you know!). The vanilla is subtle rather than dominant - all in all a very nice recipe.


Vanilla Oat Shortbread Biscuits
Ingredients
100g (3 1/2oz) butter, softened
50g (1 1/2 oz) icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g (2oz) plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
50g (1 1/2 oz) porridge oats

Method
- Cream together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the vanilla extract, flour, baking powder and oats and bring together to form a dough. Keep going, it'll come eventually.
- Form into a log (30cm long, 6cm diameter), wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes (I put mine in the freezer - it was still fine to slice after 30 mins).

**Preheat your oven to 180C/Gas 4 now if not already on for something else**

- Remove the clingfilm and slice into rounds 5mm thick and place them on a baking tray. I lined mine with parchment, but I don't think they'd stick anyway. They don't expand much at all, so leave a little space, but not much.
-Bake for 15 minutes until light golden brown and dry to the touch. Mine required a couple of minutes more.
- NB Try to make them all the same size and thickness so that they are all ready at the same time. I had a couple of small 'end of log' pieces which became rather brown.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool then enjoy!

Cheery Monday Smarties Cookies

I don't know about you, but I'm never really desperate to return to work on a Monday morning. Once I'm there and busy, it's fine, but sometimes I just need to make something to soften the blow of losing a lie-in and the general laziness that can be the weekend. Smarties cookies seemed suitably cheering and helpful in making the start of the week not so bad.


These are nice and quick and easy and a good start to the week for colleagues too. These were hoovered up in record time and got lots of favourable comments.

The recipe is one from a BBC Goodfood freebie magazine '52 Cakes, Bakes and Chocolate' which was free with the April 2006 issue. Unfortunately the recipe doesn't seem to be available on the website, so I've reproduced it below.

Smarties Cookies
Ingredients
100g/4oz butter, softened
100g/4oz light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
150g/6oz self-raising flour
85g/ 3oz smarties

Method
- Preheat oven to 180C/Gas 4

- Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and creamy, then beat in the syrup.

- Work in half the flour. Stir in the remaining flour with the Smarties and work the dough together with your fingers.

- Divide into 16 balls. Place them well apart on baking sheets to allow for them spreading. Squash slightly.

- Bake for 12-15 minutes until pale golden at the edges.

- They will keep for up to four days in an airtight container, if there are any left!

They were lovely and crispy at the edge with a slightly soft centre. You could substitute chocolate chips if you can't get hold of Smarties. Very more-ish and went very quickly.

Just as a side note though - Smarties have really changed since they've removed the artificial colours. The colours now are just sort of dull. Like the colours I used to remember, but dull. I was really disappointed, as I haven't bought Smarties for ages! The things we lose in the name of progress (and I suppose losing artificial colours is progress really!),

Buttermilk spice cake

This must definitely rank among the easiest cakes to make, it was so quick and simple - perfect for midweek baking. I put it together whilst making my dinner and managed not to confuse ingredients for cake and dinner! I had bought some buttermilk with the vague intention of making either cake or soda bread with it, but as with many of my vague intentions, nothing had materialised and the use-by date of the buttermilk was rapidly approaching. I remembered seeing this cake on the Caked Crusader's blog and thought it would be ideal to use up my pot of buttermilk. However, I didn't have 350ml of buttermilk, only 284ml and I didn't want a massive cake anyway, so decided to halve the recipe. I also decided that I didn't want such a deep cake and so although a 7" cake tin is not half the volume of an 8" tin, I decided to go with it, but cut down the cooking time accordingly. This worked remarkably well (I'm usually nervous of messing with cake tin sizes and recipe timings but must learn to trust myself more often!) and the resulting cake was moist and light.

Buttermilk spice cake (original recipe on the Caked Crusader's blog)
Ingredients
150g plain flour
112g caster sugar
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
50g unsalted butter, melted
175ml buttermilk
1 egg

Method

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

- Line a 18cm/7" springform cake tin with baking paper.

- Place all the dry ingredients (i.e. the first seven items on the list) in a bowl and mix.

- To the dry ingredients add the melted butter, buttermilk and eggs and beat until smooth and combined.

- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out cleanly. Mine took 55 minutes.

- Leave to cool, in the tin, on a wire rack until cold enough to handle. Then remove the tin and leave to cool completely.

The cake was really light and moist, but although the spices were nice, I feel that something was missing, I just can't put my finger on it. I think I'd definitely make the cake again, but I might make a vanilla version, rather than a spicy one, or perhaps vanilla and nutmeg. However, this is only my view, my work colleagues were very enthusiastic indeed, and really seemed to enjoy it with good reports.

I worked out the Weighwatchers (UK) points for this (recipe as given above and baked in 7" round tin, cut into 8 pieces - quite generous) as 3.5.