Chocolate Cupcakes

With all the crazy, magnificent cakes and desserts social media present to us (think of fully loaded Nutella doughnut shakes; cakes with shimmering shards of chocolate bark, meringue kisses, ganache AND gold leaf), I sometimes find myself overwhelmed and I look for relief in something simple. Crêpes with lemon and sugar. Scones with cream and jam. Chocolate chip cookies. Pudding with butterscotch sauce. So I decided to create simple chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing. I even held back on the glitter and confetti.

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

Sift 3/4 cup of self-raising flour and 1/4 cup dutch cocoa and set aside.

Into a double boiler: 200g chopped butter, 100g dark chocolate, 1 cup of caster sugar and 1/4 cup espresso.

I used Cadbury's 70% Old Gold for this recipe

Stir until dissolved, then set aside to cool.

Add 4 eggs and gently combine. Fold in your dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

I made mini cupcakes as I feel the icing to cake ratio is much more appropriate.
Plus you can remain ladylike whilst eating, without ruining your lippy too much.

These tiny cakes took a mere 9-10 minutes at 160 C, but do check with a skewer.

This batch produced 30+ mini cupcakes (I lost count once I started eating).

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM

The detailed recipe with pictures can be found here.

To make just enough frosting for these mini cakes (and my mouth at the end) I used:

- 2 egg whites

- 1/2 cup caster sugar

- 1/2 block soft, unsalted butter

- 50g melted dark chocolate

Whisk the eggwhites and sugar in a double boiler until the sugar is dissolved.

Transfer to a stand mixer and whip on high speed for about 10 minutes.

Once the bowl feels cool, add your soft butter a cube at a time.

Drizzle in your cool, melted chocolate.