Chocolate Cupcakes

I had some great plans to make some magnificent chocolate cupcakes for Easter.  My plan was to make the cakes then use flakes and mini eggs to create a little birds nest on the top. It sounded a good plan so I set out to make the cakes using a simple recipe which follows:

Ingredients

• 5 oz ( 150 g) butter
• 5 0z  (150g ) caster sugar
• 5 oz self raising flour
• 1 oz cocoa powder
• 3 eggs

Method

1. Mix the butter and the sugar and mix until fluffy
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk until they are blended together.
3. Put into cupcake cases and bake in a preheated oven at 180C, 350F, Gas Mark 4 for 20 minutes.

When I took them out of the oven they looked like this:

Now for the second part of my plan, to ice them and to add the decoration.  I decided to do a chocolate fudge frosting but with hindsight I think I should have done a buttercream icing as it would have made the mini eggs and flake easier to place on top.

Ingredients

• 3½ oz (100g) plain or milk chocolate
• 2 tablespoons of milk
• 2 oz (50g) butter
• 3 0z (75 g) icing sugar

Method

1. Melt the butter and chocolate in a pan and stir in the milk.
2. Stir in the icing sugar until it is smooth. A little tip, sift the icing sugar before you use it or you may end up with large lumps in the icing.
3. While it is warm spread on top of the cupcakes.

This is how they turned out in the end:

Not quite the little Easter nests I envisaged but I have to say they did taste delicious.

Other posts you may be interested in:

Easter cupcakes

Blueberry Muffins