one cupcake at a time

Somehow, this morning, after having woken up at 8, then 9, I dragged myself out of bed at 945. The demolition going on across the road was just getting a bit much for me. Plus, I hadn't gone to the gym yesterday so felt a bit guilty, especially since I had some of ben's giant peanut buttercup thingy last night. So tried out a different route today, that takes me out to sixth avenue and back round to bt timah road. Now just have to figure out how far that is...

Since I'd gotten up too late to do any baking on Saturday, I decided I might as well whack some out this morning. So I made a batch of 12 cupcakes, using a recipe from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Bites, but making it with chocolate ganache instead of the coloured icing. The ganache was far easier than I thought (for some reason always thought it would be complicated, maybe cos it's got a fancy name).

So that was my first attempt at cupcakes. Very long overdue. Will put up a better picture soon - it was terribly dark and about to rain when I took this one.




Chocolate cupcakes
125g of self-rising flour
125g very soft unsalted butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
1-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
Few tablespoons of whole milk
12-cup cupcake pan

Preheat oven to 200° C.

Mix all the ingredients for the cupcakes (except the milk). (For chocolate cupcakes, replace one tablespoon of the flour, after you've weighed it, with one tbsp of cocoa powder)
Then pour in the milk and mix again until you have a smooth batter. (I didn't have full-cream milk so I put in some low-fat milk and some cream, which probably resulted in a heavier batter than if I had used just full-cream milk)
Divide the mixture into the cupcake pan.
Bake for about 10-15 minutes. Cool the cupcakes on a wire rack.

Chocolate ganache - which is essentially equal parts cream and chocolate
150g dark chocolate buttons from Bake King (buttons are easier - they don't have to be chopped up)
150ml cream

Pour both ingredients into a small saucepan and stir over low heat until chocolate is melted and it looks glossy and thick.
Spoon onto the cooled cupcakes, wait for a few minutes to let it set.
Eat.
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