Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

It has been a while since I have done a spot of the old baking, but today I have had a chance to address this lack of kitchen chemistry.

Inspired by my wife's delicious Black Forest Gateaux I designed a cup cake that would incorporate the same gorgeous flavours with a nod to the old 70's/80's favourite of the butterfly design.
 


For this recipe I had to start with a simple, Victoria sponge recipe with the addition on cocoa.

This is an easy recipe to follow;

  • 100g caster sugar
  • 100g margarine
  • 75g self raising flour
  • 25g cocoa powder
  • 2 medium eggs
Cream the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whisk in the eggs one at a time slowly incorporating the dry ingredients.

Half fill 12 paper cases with the mixture and then bake in the oven at 190C for 15 minutes.





After 15 minutes check the cakes with a skewer. If it comes out clean then the cakes are ready.




Let them cool in the cake tin for a few minutes then place on a rack to cool completely.




Here they are just out of the oven.

Once they are perfectly cool you can start to cut out the middles that will allow you to fill them with jam. The bit that gets removed will be cut in half to make the wings of the butterfly.

The picture here shows the tops removed and a teaspoonful of black cherry jam inserted in the space.

Next job is to make the vanilla butter icing. For this you need;

100g of butter

200g of icing sugar

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Beat these together, adding the icing sugar slowly to prevent your kitchen looking like a Antarctic white-out.

Pipe the icing straight onto the jam. I like to do a swirl on top. For each of the cake tops cut into two 'wings' and stick on top of he icing as two wings.

Now take five cherries and squeeze them to collect the juice, add sieved icing sugar to the juice until you have a drizzle consistency. Drizzle some of this icing over the buttercream to give an arty look.


Sprinkle with icing sugar and top with a cherry - delicious!

 

Comments

  1. Anonymous23 June 2012 at 14:20

    Dear Ed, your cupcakes sound delicious. You could try a raspberry version with the fruits from your allotment and sprigs mint.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown23 June 2012 at 20:53

    Dear Ed

    Cupcakes look yummy ! You are obviously a very talented young man :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous24 June 2012 at 00:57

    They look good enough to eat

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous24 June 2012 at 09:16

    Tasty, tasty, very very tasty!

    ReplyDelete

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