Thursday, February 7, 2013

Chocolate Cupcakes

OK, I realise this will be the second post on this blog not involving a crust. It's worth it though! I decided that Rachel needed a cake for her birthday. The pecan pie was delicious, but cake, dammit! I decided that cupcakes would be sensible, given that there was already pie...

I didn't have any time to shop for additional ingredients so I had to find a recipe that matched what I already had at home. The main constraint I had was that my usual cupcake recipe uses 4 eggs and I knew I only had 2. And to my luck I found this really great recipe by Liz Macri (from Australian Good Taste - April 2010, Page 102) which has a lovely not over-sweet flavour and ganache topping. It's also a cinch to make, even though I'm still nervous as all get-out making ganache :-)

Ingredients
  • 75g (½ cup) plain flour
  • 75g (½ cup) self-raising flour
  • 100g (½ cup firmly packed) brown sugar
  • ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 90g butter at room temperature
  • 60ml (¼ cup) milk
  • 2 tbs golden syrup
  • 1 egg, lightly whisked
  • 2 tsp vanilla essence
  • 60ml (¼ cup) thickened cream
  • 200g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
Method
  1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Line twelve cupcake pans with paper cases.
  2. Sift combined flour, sugar and bicarb into a bowl. Add butter, milk, golden syrup, egg and vanilla. Mix until pale and creamy. Fold in the half of the chocolate bits. Divide mixture among prepared pans. Bake for 25 minutes or until firm. Leave for 10 minutes to cool a little and then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
  3. Meanwhile, stir the cream (I used double cream since that's what I had lying around) and the rest of the chocolate in a saucepan over very low heat until smooth. Do not rush this or the chocolate will separate and be ruined. Transfer to a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for about 30 minutes - until it's not quite so runny.
  4. Spread the chocolate icing over the top. I found that blobbing a dollop on the top and gently tapping the cupcake helped spread the ganache nicely.

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