Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes

It's National Cupcake Week in the UK - what better excuse than to bake cupcakes!! Here's one of my favourite 'fail proof' cupcake recipes for chocolate fudge cupcakes.

Everytime I make these cakes they always turn out the same - fluffy and moist. Here's what you need:

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fudge  Buttercream Swirls

Ingredients:

Cupcakes

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup dark brown sugar (golden caster sugar is also ok if you don't have dark brown sugar)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup skimmed milk (I use 2% fat)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (I use Dutch processed cocoa)
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Fudge Buttercream

• 3 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup double cream
• 70g dark (bittersweet) chocolate, chopped roughly
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 1/4 cups icing sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 180C (or 160C if fan forced). Sift the flour into a large bowl, then stir in the sugar, baking soda and salt. In a medium-sized saucepan combine the milk, butter and cocoa powder over a medium heat. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly while the mixture is heating up. Once boiling, remove from heat and whisk in the flour mixture, until all the ingredients are combined and the mixture is smooth. Whisk in the egg and vanilla until blended. Spoon the mixture in cupcake cases in baking pan (fill no more than 1/2 of each liner as the mixture rises quite a bit during baking). Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the centre of the cupcake comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool in the baking tin for 5 minutes before transferring them onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

To make the buttercream, combinine butter and cream in a small saucepan, then cook over medium high heat until the butter is melted. Whisk in chopped chocolate and continue whisking until smooth and all the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and let the mixture cool to lukewarm (10-15 mins). Next whisk in the sour cream, and then the icing sugar until well combined. Let the frosting rest until thick enough to spread (only takes a few minutes). If it becomes too thick, heat it briefly and whisk again (you may need to do this a few times in order to frost all of your cupcakes). Pipe or spread the fbuttercream onto cooled cupcakes, then decorate as desired. I sprinkled edible gold glitter on my cupcakes for a bit of extra pizazz!

Happy baking!