I wanted my first blogiversary to be the star, so I decided to leave the details of my scrumptious looking chocolate cupcakes for today’s entry. The recipe is from (guess what?) The cupcake, a very cute pinksy cupcake book that was a gift from my friend. I am so thankful for the book really, now all my creations finally look like cupcakes. They used to look like this 3 years ago:

They have now evolved into this:

Chocolate cupcakes

INGREDIENTS: (for 12-14)

115 g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tbs cocoa powder

115 g butter, softened

115 g caster sugar

1 eggs, lightly beaten

55 g dark chocolate, melted

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line the cupcake tray

Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder in a large bowl

Add butter, sugar, eggs and use an electric mixer to beat together until smooth

Fold in the melted chocolate

Spoon the mixture into the liners. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the toothpick inserted into the cakes comes out clean

Transfer to a wire rack and left cool

Chocolate frosting

INGREDIENTS:

150 g dark chocolate, chopped

200 ml double cream

140 g butter, softened

120 g icing sugar

METHOD:

Heat the cream in the sauce pan until boiling then pour over the chocolate and stir until smooth. Leave to cool, stir occasionally

In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

Beat in the chocolate mixture

Chill for 15-20 minutes in the fridge

To make one beautiful finish, pipe plenty of frosting over each cupcake. Decorate however you like.

I have a little confession to make: I hate buttercream! Too greasy and too sweet to my taste. I normally prefer whipped cream or cream cheese much more as a topping. However, I am in love with this frosting. The balance of the cream lightness and butter smoothness hits me right on the spot. And I don’t even need to comment how glossy it looks sitting on top of my very chocolatey cupcakes.





And now I’m off for yet another night in library T____T” (I’m supposed to go but laziness has taken over)

Have a sweet week everyone,

Love,

Phuong