Chocolate Cupcakes

These are quite possibly the best chocolate cupcakes I've ever had. One day I had a craving for a simple chocolate cupcake. Not one that's paired with fruit or caramel or a combination of flavours. Just pure chocolate.  Sometimes simple is best and this is about as simple as it gets. No extra flavours, no hidden surprises just chocolate on chocolate. It definitely satisfied my craving and it was so good I baked a second batch so that J could take some to work.

Makes 12 cupcakes
For the cupcake
185g flour
50g cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
113g butter
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup or 125mls milk
1/2 cup or 125ml hot water

For the frosting
150g butter
160g icing sugar
25g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
115g dark chocolate, melted
2 tablespoons cream

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add in the eggs, one at a time and then the vanilla extract.
• Add half of the dry ingredients then the milk.
• Add the remaining dry ingredients then the hot water.
• Divide the mixture into 12 cupcake cases.
• Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely before frosting.
• To make the frosting, beat the butter and icing sugar together until smooth. 
• Add the cocoa powder followed by the melted chocolate and mix well.
• Finally add in the cream and whisk further until the icing is smooth and glossy.
• Pipe the chocolate icing on top of the chocolate cupcakes and decorate with sprinkles. 

Ginger Bonfire Cupcakes

As promised I have a Bonfire Night recipe for you. Today is Guy Fawkes Night celebrated annually on November 5th to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. The traditional cake eaten today is parkin cake which is a sticky gingerbread cake. I've taken inspiration and come up with a fun cupcake that has flavours of traditional parkin.

These cupcakes are perfect for the occasion and relatively simple to bake. I baked these twice as I had to experiment with the spice levels and different frosting and I think they are now almost perfect. It has a sticky gingerbread cake base topped with  lemon buttercream and orange matchmaker sticks. The flavours work well together as the sweet and zesty lemon frosting sets of the fiery, spiced cupcake. My initial trial I made a golden syrup cinnamon cream cheese frosting which was absolutely delicious but unfortunately the icing was too soft to pipe tall peaks required for the bonfire effect. The lemon frosting worked equally well in terms of flavour pairing and visually it looks much better. 

I'm sending this to a few blog challenges this month.

Treat Petite hosted by Kat from The Baking Explorer and Stuart fromCakeyboi. The theme this month is Autumn.

Recipe of the Week hosted by Emily from A Mummy Too.

#FoodYearLinkUp hosted by Charlotte from Charlotte's Lively Kitchen. Lots of foodies events in November and this is for Guy Fawkes Night.

 adding golden syrup to the cake batter 

 ready to go in the oven 

 I made 2 bags of frosting - 1 yellow and 1 orange and then placed them both in another piping bag with a 1M star tip to create the two tone piping effect.

 Pipe the frosting a high as you can

 Add orange matchmaker sticks so that it looks like a bonfire and add a sprinkling of orange sugar if you have it. 

 This is my initial failed attempt with the cream cheese frosting - absolutely delicious but less visually appealing! 

Makes 15cupcakes 

For the cupcakes

150g butter

130g soft brown sugar

3 eggs

150g self raising flour

60mls golden syrup

2.5 teaspoons ground ginger

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the frosting

110g butter

zest of 1 lemon

300g icing sugar, sifted

1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

food colouring - orange and yellow

For the decoration

Orange matchmaker sticks

Orange sanding sugar 

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add in the golden syrup.
• Add in the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.
• In a separate bowl, sift the flour and spices and add it to the butter mixture.
• Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases - I use an ice cream scoop to get an even amount of cake batter per cupcake case.
• Bake for approximately 16-18 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely. 
• I made a double batch of frosting and it's plenty to frost all the cupcakes - I didn't want to risk running out as it would be difficult to get the same colour again. If you have leftover frosting, you can use it to make cookies! 
• To make the frosting, beat the butter and icing sugar for at least 5 minutes until smooth and fluffy. Add in the lemon zest and slowly add in the lemon juice until you get the required consistency. 
• Add the food colouring and mix well - I use colour paste.
• Repeat for the second batch.
• As shown in the pictures, place each colour of icing in a disposable piping bag and snip the end of the bag off. 
• Place both bags side by side into another piping bag fitted with a 1M star tip ensuring that the ends of the bags go into the piping nozzle.
• Pipe the buttercream on a plate initially to get a good mix of colour then decorate the cupcakes as shown.

Spider Cupcakes

Happy Halloween everyone! This is a quick and easy project to make for Halloween. There's still time to bake these tomorrow as it's really simple and does not require any specialist equipment. The kids will have lots of fun decorating these! Life has been a bit hectic lately so I've not had a chance to do as much Halloween baking as I would have liked. I baked these late last night and they were a real hit at work today. I used a favourite chocolate cupcake recipe which is a mix all in one recipe with generous servings (makes 18 cupcakes). As I was short on time, I made a quick chocolate ganache to spread on top and decorated the cupcakes to look like spooky spiders. I couldn't find any black liquorice lace sweets but managed to find strawberry cables which is what I used for the legs. The eyes are made of white chocolate buttons and milk chocolate chips. The cupcakes were chocolatey and the ganache was divine. Great cupcakes on their own but much more fun eating all the parts of the spider too! 

I'm sending these to Treat Petite hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi and Kat from The Baking Explorer. The theme this month is Black and Orange. I used orange cupcake cases and there's plenty of dark chocolate in the cake and frosting!

It's also perfect for #FoodYearLinkUp hosted by Charlotte from Charlotte's Lively Kitchen. There were lots of events for the Food Bloggers Calendar in October and I am sad to have missed out on quite a few but pleased that I've managed one Halloween bake.

 Strawberry cables, white chocolate buttons, milk chocolate chips and chocolate strands/vermicelli 

 place a generous amount of chocolate ganache on top of the cupcakes

 Spinkle the chocolate strands on top then add the 'eyes' and 'legs' as shown. 

 They looked really good in a red container

 I ran out of strawberry cable so 2 of them didn't have legs! 

For the cupcakes - Makes 18 cupcakes

280g plain flour
250g caster sugar
80g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
300mls water
170g butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon chocolate extract (you can also use vanilla extract)

For the chocolate ganache 

150ml double cream

150g dark chocolate

For the decorations

Chocolate strands/vermicelli

White chocolate buttons

Milk chocolate chips

Strawberry cables or liquorice lace sweets

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Place all the ingredients for the cupcake into a large mixer bowl and mix on low - medium speed for a few minutes until well mixed. 
• Scoop into cupcake cases and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely before decorating.
• Make the chocolate ganache by heating the cream gently until bubbles just form.
• Add in chopped dark chocolate and stir until smooth.
• Decorate the cupcakes as shown above.

Wedding Favour Cupcakes

In case you missed the announcement in my last post, I got married recently and this is my first post as Mrs! It was a really beautiful day and everyone had a good time. The day turned out better than either of us could have imagined and we are still recovering from the celebrations. My AlphaBakes co-host and friend Caroline from Caroline Makes made our wedding cake which turned out beautifully. It was absolutely gorgeous and we had so many compliments about the look and the taste of the cake, I won't be surprised if she gets wedding cake orders from now! She made a chocolate layer and a lemon layer as requested and they were both equally delicious. I've just noticed that she has blogged about it so you can read all about it here. Here's a sneak preview of the cake. Thanks again Caroline for the most amazing wedding cake! 

I knew quite early on that I would not be baking my own wedding cake but I did want to bake something so I decided to bake some mini cupcakes as wedding favours. Our colour theme was red and gold so I decided to bake golden syrup cupakes. It's a really quick and easy bake particularly as I baked them in mini cupcake cases. I found some really pretty gift boxes which I wanted to use but I had trouble sourcing the correct sized cupcake cases. I eventually found some but they only came in white. We had some gorgeous wedding invitations made and I took a picture of the logo with our initials on and got them printed on edible paper to use as cupcake toppers. The easiest part of this process was baking and frosting the cake. The most difficult part was making up the gift boxes, putting the cupcakes inside, tying the ribbons with a custom made tag. However, it was well worth the effort as the cakes looked beautiful in the gift boxes and they tasted good too! 

 mini golden syrup cupcakes

 ready to be boxed 

 This is our table setting and you can see the cupcake boxes on the table

 close up of the cupcake

I'm sending this to a few blog challenges this month. 

AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes this month and co hosted by myself on alternate months. The letter this month is W for Wedding Favour Cupcakes.

Simply Eggcellent hosted by Dom from Belleau Kitchen. The theme this month is anything goes.

Love Cake hosted by Ness from Jibber Jabber UK. The theme this month is 'in a hurry' and the cakes have to be made and baked in less than 60 minutes. These cupcakes took about 5 minutes to prepare, 10- 15 minutes to bake and another 10 minutes to decorate.

Recipe is from Lyle's website

I doubled the recipe to make 54 mini cupcakes which were approximately 4cm x 3cm x 4cm.

Baking time was approximately 10-15 minutes. 

I added a small bit of icing using a piping bag with a star tip nozzle as shown and an edible cupcake topper.  

Chocolate Blackberry Cupcakes

It's been a busy start to September mainly because I was away in Venice to celebrate my birthday over the weekend. I had a lovely chocolate dome cake from a bakery there on my birthday which was absolutely delicious! I was so excited I didn't even take a picture before tucking in. 

I love birthdays and I tend to have prolonged celebrations each year. Obviously a birthday is not really a birthday without cake and lots of it! On my return I decided to bake some cupcakes to continue the celebrations. I chose these flavours so I could enter them into several blogging challenges this month. I initially wanted to bake the cake with blackberry jam but just couldn't find it in the shops.  Lots of blackcurrant jam but no blackberry jam! I did however find some bramble jelly which is made from blacberries so I've incorporated that into the recipe. 

I adapated a recipe from BBC Good Food and it turned out beautifully. The cake was light and chocolatey but not overly so. You can clearly taste the blackberries and I loved the jelly in the middle. The icing was my favourite part as it uses blackberry puree for the flavour and colour. Everyone thought they were really good and they disappeared really quickly. I have some leftover frosting so I will be baking them into cookies. I've never had a blackberry cookie before so I'm quite excited to try it out.

I'm sending this to a few challenges this month.

AlphaBakes hosted by myself this month and Caroline from Caroline Makes on alternate months. The letter this month is J for Jelly.

We Should Cocoa hosted by Kate from The Veg Space on behalf of Choclette from Tin and Thyme. The theme this month is blackberries.

Simply Eggcellent hosted by Dom from Belleau Kitchen. The theme this month is cakes as it's also Dom's birthday in September. Happy Birthday in advance Dom!

Treat Petite hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi and Kat from The Baking Explorer. The theme this month is anything goes. 

The Vegetable Palette and Fruit Palette hosted by Shaheen from A2K - A Seasonal Veg Table. The theme this month is Purple and Blues.

 The mixture is very liquid but don't worry. I love the colour of the blackberries. 

 adding a generous layer of jelly before baking 

 after baking 

 I love that you can see a bit of the jelly poking out under the gorgeous frosting which is has a really pretty colour and tastes good too! 

Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food

For the cupcakes - makes 15 cupcakes

300g blackberries, divided into two portions of 150g each 

100g butter

100g milk chocolate

225g self raising flour

175g coconut sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 eggs

100mls boiling water 

For the frosting

100g butter

400g icing sugar

Blackberry puree - see recipe

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Place 150g blackberries in a bowl and roughly crush with a fork so the juices are running but there are still chunky bits of fruit left.
• In a medium sized saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate and allow to cool slightly. 
• Crack 2 eggs into the chocolate-butter mixture and whisk briefly. 
• In a separate bowl, mix the flour, sugar and coocoa powder.
• Mix the wet and dry ingredients together adding in the crushed blackberries. Add the boiling water and mix well. The mixture will be very liquid at this stage. 
• Divide the cake mixture between the cupcake cases and fill until approximately 2/3 full.
• Place a large spoonful of bramble jelly on top of each cupcake.
• Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes or until cooked and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• Allow to cool completely before frosting.
• To make the frosting, place the remaining 150g blackberries in a food processor and whizz until pureed.
• Place in a strainer and strain the pureed blackberries. 
• Beat the butter and icing sugar together until smooth - about 5 minutes in an electric mixer.
• Add in the sieved blackberry puree and mix well.
• Decorate the cake using a piping bag and piping nozzle. 

Raspberry and Coconut Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a charity bake sale at J's work weeks ago. The inspiration for these cupcakes were the Taylor & Colledge flavour pastes that I was sent to review. I'd already tried out the lemon one in this banana and berry lemon muffin recipe which worked really well.  I decided to try the coconut one next and chose to pair it with raspberry. The result was a wonderfully moist, coconuty cake interspersed with chunks of fresh raspberries which cut through the coconut. It was paired with a raspberry jam frosting and had a hidden raspberry inside the cake. I baked 2 batches for the bake sale and a further batch later in the week to take to my work as it was just too good not to share. Everyone was amazed by the hidden raspberry which looks like a heart so I'm planning to make this again for Valentine's Day next year!

I'm sharing this with a few blog challenges this month

Cook Blog Share hosted by Lucy from Supergolden Bakes.

Recipe of the Week hosted by Emily from A Mummy Too

Tasty Tuesdays hosted by Vicki from Honest Mum

Bake of the Week hosted by Helen from Casa Costello 

 This was for a double recipe 

 Adding coconut extract paste 

 adding fresh raspberries and dessicated coconut

 lovely cupcake batter 

 fresh from the oven

 Make a small hole in th centre using a cupcake corer or melon baller 

 Fill it with a fresh raspberry

 ready to frost 

 pipe icing on and add a fresh raspberry on top and a sprinkling of dessicated coconut 

 I used pink and white spotty cases to match the raspberry and coconut 

 Ta-da! Do you think the raspberry looks like a heart inside? 

Makes 12 cupcakes

For the cupcakes 

130g unsalted butter, softened
125g caster sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
130g self-raising flour
50ml double cream 

1 teaspoon Taylor & Colledge coconut extract
50g desiccated coconut
50g fresh raspberries

For the icing
110g butter
110g seedless raspberry jam
100g icing sugar, sifted

To decorate

24 fresh raspberries

dessicated coconut 

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add in the eggs slowly and continue mixing. 
• Add in the coconut extract, double cream and flour. 
• Finally stir in the dessicated coconut and fresh raspberries by hand.
• Fill the cupcake cases until 2/3 full with cake batter.
• Bake for approximately 18 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• Allow to cool completely before decorating.
• To make the icing, beat the butter and icing sugar until smooth.
• Add the raspberry jam and continue beating until smooth. 
• Make a small hole in the centre of each cupcake - you can use a cupcake corer or a melon baller.
• Place a fresh raspberry in the cored out cupcake.
• Pipe the frosting on top and decorate each cupcake with a fresh raspberry on top and a sprinkling of dessicated coconut.

Disclaimer: I was sent a range of flavour pastes from Taylor & Colledge for review purposes. A positive review was not required and all opinions expressed are my own. This is not a sponsored post.