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Chocolate Easter Nest Cupcakes


I don't know about you, but with two teens and a chocoholic husband in the house, Easter is normally a chocolate-fest on a massive scale.


Erm, hang on, who am I kidding?

There is always chocolate in the house, and I have been one of the primary candidates for chocolate over-consumption during the last few months while I have been at home with Sam. Not a terribly good example to set, but (hopefully) once I am back at work, a more normal diet will resume once temptation is removed.


Anyway, with Easter fast approaching this weekend, I wanted to do some Easter themed cupcakes. If you're looking for a quick and easy recipe which delivers on flavour, then these fit the bill fantastically. They are made using one of my favourite chocolate sponge recipes, also used for my Poppin' Chocolate Orange Cupcakes, and just used in cupcake form rather than a layer cake. It's adapted from Usborne's Children's Cookbook.


Ingredients (makes 16 cupcakes)

200g self raising flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
4 tbspns cocoa powder
4 medium eggs
225g softened unsalted butter (or at a pinch, use a good quality margarine!)
225g light soft brown sugar
1 tbspn milk

You just measure all the ingredients into a bowl and then cream with a hand mixer until light and fluffy, baking in a fan 155 / conventional 175 oven for around 18 minutes. You end up with a delicious, moist chocolate cupcake with a hint of fudginess due to the soft brown sugar. I paired them with the chocolate buttercream recipe from Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery. They were intensely chocolately, but not overly sweet.

for the buttercream

175g chocolate (70% cocoa) melted and cooled slightly
225g softened unsalted butter
1 tbspn semi skimmed milk at room temperature
1 tspn vanilla extract
250g icing sugar, sifted

Beat all the buttercream ingredients well until smooth and creamy.


I used the Wilton 1M tip to pipe swirls on top of the cupcakes. In hindsight my buttercream was too thick for the nest effect I was after, as I had added some extra icing sugar to the buttercream to try and make sure it was firm enough to hold the mini eggs - I ended up going a little too far! The mini eggs tended to sit on top of the cakes rather than nestle, and some of the swirls were decidedly rough - see what I mean?


They still tasted delicious though!

Enjoy,

Susie
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Comments

  1. Jo04 April, 2012 12:38

    Those look so good! Adding brown sugar to the mixture must make an amazing flavour. I've been having chocolate cupcake cravings this week (and it's only Wednesday!) It's not safe to leave a bag on mini eggs near me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susie @ Fold in the Flour04 April, 2012 13:01

      Yeah, I know what you mean. I had to fend Josh and Ben off from the one bag I managed to save for these! It was worth it :)

      Delete
  2. Laura04 April, 2012 21:52

    These look seriously good...that's a good amount of buttercream...and you can't go wrong with mini eggs! :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susie @ Fold in the Flour05 April, 2012 08:21

      Thanks Laura, I always like to be generous with buttercream, and you're right mini eggs are just so yummy :)

      Delete
  3. Baking Addict05 April, 2012 23:52

    These look delicious and definitely appeal to the chocaholic in me :) I love the frosting to cake ratio (I'm definitely a frosting person) Have a great Easter :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susie @ Fold in the Flour06 April, 2012 07:42

      Definitely with you on the buttercream cake ratio! Have a lovely Easter, too! :)

      Delete
  4. SmartCookieSam12 April, 2012 09:38

    Wow, these look fab! I make chocolate cupcakes like these for my customers. I agree you can't go wrong with chocolate buttercream and mini eggs, they're very popular! x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susie @ Fold in the Flour13 April, 2012 06:35

      Definitely a treat - not just for Easter though :)

      Delete
  5. Caroline14 May, 2012 01:05

    I really want to try this, but I don't have a scale for grams. I was wondering if you could convert this recipe into cups? Oh, I was just wondering about the light brown sugar. The last time I made your peanut butter cupcakes I put in the light brown sugar and it became over powering and all I tasted was the light brown sugar? Any advice?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susie @ Fold in the Flour14 May, 2012 07:47

      Hi Caroline, I'm really sorry that you had problems with the light brown sugar - I'll do a bit of research and post a full reply as soon as I can. Best wishes, Susie

      Delete
    2. Susie @ Fold in the Flour14 May, 2012 10:26

      Hi again. The best I can suggest is that if you are using light brown soft sugar (which should be about 3.5% molasses so I understand - as you can get different molasses content) then try using 1 cup of packed sugar. This would give you ever so slightly less than 225g but probably not in any noticeable way (the difference is probably about 1 tbspn). The soft brown sugar is used to give a slightly fudgey texture to the cake, but it shouldn't overpower the recipe, as it still should taste very chocolatey. Are you using Dutch processed cocoa which is what we generally use in the UK? As I understand that can affect the taste too. The other measurements are 200g self raising (cake) flour = 7.14 oz = 1 and 3/4 cups of flour, 4 medium eggs (in the UK that's 53-63g weighed in the shell) are more like your large eggs (57 to 64g) and the 225g butter would equate to 1 cup or 2 sticks. I hope that helps, as I'm not sure what else to suggest, but hope you do try them again and have a better result! Good luck and please let me know how you get on, or email me via the blog if you have any other questions. Best wishes, Susie.

      Delete

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