Spiced Chocolate Cupcakes

{Recipe by Stacey}

These are cupcakes that I've been eating my whole life. I've changed the method a little to include more mixing which helps to create a lighter, fluffier cupcake - so as tedious as it seems to keep the Kenwood or Mixmaster going, it seriously pays off!



Spiced Chocolate Cupcakes
(Makes 12)

100g butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1/4 tspn vanilla extract
150g dark chocolate buttons
2 tbsp instant coffee
1/2 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn bi-carb soda
1 tspn mixed spice
1/8 tspn salt
1/3 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a 12-hole cupcake pan with papers.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and the brown sugar for 5 minutes on a high speed. Add the eggs a little at a time (over the space of 2-3 minutes), then add the vanilla and beat it gently into the mixture.

Put the chocolate in a saucepan and put it over low heat on the stove and stir until it has melted. Combine the coffee and boiling water together and stir to dissolve the coffee.

Add the dry ingredients, the buttermilk, the chocolate and the coffee to the butter mixture and gently fold the whole lot.

Fill the cupcake cases about 3/4 full then bake the cakes for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Be careful not to over-cook the cupcakes. Put the cakes on a wire rack to cool completely then ice very simply with an icing sugar glaze.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

These are some gluten free chocolate cupcakes I made as an experiment - I'm not gluten intolerant myself but have a couple of friends who are and I wanted to be able to pass along a really good cake recipe.

The texture of these cakes is very dense and rich. Actually, they taste quite similar to my ugly mudcake.



Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes
(Makes 12)

175g butter
250g good quality dark chocolate
1 1/4 cups castor sugar
3/4 cup almond meal
1 cup cocoa powder
5 eggs, beaten

Preheat the oven to 140C and line a cupcake pan with papers.

In a large saucepan, melt together the butter, chocolate and sugar, stirring often until the mixture is smooth and the sugar has melted.

Stir in the almond meal, cocoa powder and eggs then spoon the mixture into the cupcake papers.

Bake for half an hour or until a skewer inserted comes out cleanly with moist crumbs clinging to it. Remove the cupcakes from the pan and leave them to cool on a wire rack.

Frost the cupcakes with buttercream or chocolate ganache or, as I do, eat them whilst they're still warm with a bit of whipped cream.

Ugly Mudcake

Mudcake.

The word brings about memories of rich chocolate cake purchased from the "gourmet" bakery in the "better" suburbs for a girly afternoon tea, usually to celebrate a friend's birthday.

Unfortunately, as beautifully decorated as these cakes usually are with their shiny layer of chocolate ganache and curls of white or dark (or sometimes both) grated chocolate, the insides would often be dry, dense, sickly sweet and taste a little bit processed. Bakeries often use a variety of cake/bread improvers, sugar syrups, preservatives and artificial flavours in their products to make the product more "stable" when baking, to make it last longer and to make it cheaper to produce.

So instead of trying to replicate a beautiful but tasteless cake, I'm going to tell you how to make the most gorgeous-tasting, but super ugly, chocolate mudcake!

Ugly Mudcake
(Serves 8-10)

220g butter
320g chocolate buttons (milk or dark)
1/4 cup boiling water
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup caster sugar
4 eggs (only use 3 if they are 60g each or more)
1 cup self-raising flour

Preheat your oven to 150C. Grease a round cake pan and line the bottom with baking paper.

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter and chocolate with the water. Let it cool for a few minutes, then mix in the cocoa powder and sugar.

Gently stir in the eggs, followed by the flour.

Pour the mixture into the pan and let it sit for a few minutes before putting it in the oven. This will let some of the air-bubbles that have been stirred in rise to the surface so your cake will bake evenly.

Bake the cake for 1 1/4 hours (or until a skewer inserted comes out cleanly, with only moist crumbs clinging to it.) Let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

The result will be a mudcake that is NOT pretty. It has a habit of sinking a little in the middle no matter what I do. I've tried using more flour, baking powder, bi-carb soda - nothing will help it look prettier. But for all its ugliness, it's one of the BEST chocolate cakes I've ever made.

Ice it with a simple chocolate ganache if you'd like, but I never do. I prefer to cut a wedge, heat it a little in the microwave then serve it with some double thick cream or vanilla ice-cream.

Chocolate Birthday Cupcakes

For your simple viewing pleasure - here is a rich chocolate cupcake I made my darling Pete last week for his 28th birthday.

It's decorated with vanilla buttercream, white sprinkles and (of course!) a candle.

The recipe itself is nothing special, but here's a hint for all you bakers out there - dissolve a teaspoon of instant coffee granules in a tablespoon of boiling water before adding it to the cupcake mixture. (Note: this amount is suitable for a batch of 12.) The coffee flavour isn't obvious but it creates a slight bitterness which off-sets the sweetness of the chocolatey cake.

And Pete loved his cupcakes! :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies (or biscuits, if you'd prefer to call them that.) Except when those chocolate chip cookies have about three chocolate chips in them. Per batch. Not cool!

The beauty of making them yourself is that you can control the chocolate content. And the type of chocolate! Tiny white chocolate chips, or large bitter dark chocolate chunks. The choice is yours.

Choc Chip Cookies
(Makes 36)

150g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tspn vanilla extract (or 1 tspn vanilla essence)
1 egg
1 3/4 cups self-raising flour
1/2 tspn salt
125g chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180C and line two baking trays with baking paper.

In a mixer (or using a set of electric hand beaters) beat the butter, sugars and vanilla until it forms a thick, pale and fluffy mixture. Slowly beat in the egg.

Stir in the sifted flour and salt, then add the choc chips (or chunks ;p ).

Roll the dough into small balls (about two teaspoons full) and place on the baking trays. Don't squash them down - just leave them as little balls otherwise they'll spread too much and look like flat discs rather than chunky biscuits.

Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes in the oven, or until they look pale gold. Transfer them to a wire rack to cool (or be eaten, whichever comes first!)