Fudgey Chocolate Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream

These were a request from a lovely new friend I’ve made since going back to work. I thought they were pretty yummy and they seemed to be well received by my colleagues who enjoyed snacking on them during a meeting. I wanted something really chocolatey for the cupcake base so used our Chocolate Mud Cake recipe, it isn’t as rich or dense in cupcake form but tastes delicious and is a little fudge like.

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons good quality drinking cocoa
1 cup hot water
¼ cup fruit juice
200 grams dark cooking chocolate chopped
1½cups sugar
250 grams butter
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Buttercream:
150g butter softened
3-4 cups icing sugar, sifted
2-3 tablespoons hot water (warm icing makes the colour take better)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon cinnamon (more or less to taste)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 140˚C.  Grease and line x2 muffin/cupcake tins with 24 cases.
Put the dinking cocoa, hot water and juice into a saucepan and bring to a simmer.  Remove from the heat.
Add the chocolate and butter and stir until melted.
Add the sugar and stir until it is dissolved.  Allow to cool.
In a large bowl sift the flour and baking soda together then make a well in the centre.
Beat the eggs together with the vanilla essence and stir into the cooled chocolate mixture.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients and stir gently to mix (I found I was getting clumps of flour so I beat it very gently with the electric beaters for under a minute as not to overwork the ingredients).
Fill cupcake cases to two thirds and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, they will bounce back once cooked and skewer can be removed cleanly.
To make the buttercream, cream butter in or with a mixer until pale. On a low speed add icing sugar alternating with hot water and vanilla essence. Continue to beat until light and fluffy or until it’s reached a consistency you are happy with. At this stage you can add in the cinnamon to taste.
Decorate as desired, I used a 1M tip to pipe mine and scattered gorgeous sugar pearls from The Pretty Baker to brighten them up so they weren’t boring beige, I also put a sprinkle of cinnamon on some of them.

Cinnamon Cupcakes

I made these for the high tea we had at Melissa and Simon’s a few weeks ago.  I also made mini versions at Christmas but hadn’t posted the recipe as I wasn’t able to get a photo to share with you until now!

To make you will need:
1 ½ cups of sifted flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
100 grams of butter, softened
¾ cup of brown sugar, packed
1 egg (room temperature)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
¾ cup of milk (room temperature)

Preheat oven to 180°C. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in in a bowl. In a separate large bowl beat the butter, cinnamon and sugar until light and fluffy, add the egg and vanilla and mix well.
Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture in three additions, alternating with two additions of milk. Beat lightly after each addition just enough to combine the ingredients.
Divide the batter between 12 medium cupcake papers so that each is ⅔ full.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until you can remove a skewer cleanly. Cool completely before icing.
I recommend icing with a vanilla buttercream.