The need for chocolate.
This is a need you understand, right? The need that, faced with two very challenging weeks, there is no such thing as too much chocolate. Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate filling and chocolate icing and chocolate sprinkles and two kinds of chocolate Malteasers.
But there is good news: my computer is back, in working order. The school stuff that was less than pleasant is not gone, but it is now to a point where we can breathe and look forward. We have two weeks until summer break here, and that will be a welcome event for pretty much everybody.
In the mean time, we eat chocolate.
It’s cheaper than therapy.
Serious Chocolate Cupcakes
Cake ingredients:
110g unsalted butter
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150g brown sugar
100g sugar
175g plain flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 packet instant hot chocolate
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
50ml single cream
125ml milk
Preheat oven to 180C and line cupcake tin with papers.
In a mixing bowl, beat butter until fluffy, then add sugars and beat until light and even. Add eggs and vanilla, mixing on low between each one.
Stir in remaining ingredients, then mix until an even consistency.
Fill cupcake papers just over halfway and bake for about 18 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Make sure they are room temperature or chilled before adding filling.
Malted chocolate cream filling
ingredients:
200ml whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate
50g light brown sugar
1 packet instant hot chocolate
Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from heat and allow to rest until just warm.
In a separate bowl, mix the whipping cream and sugar on a high speed until the cream thickens. Add remaining ingredients and continue to mix on high. Stir in melted chocolate.
Chill until cold. Use a melon baller to remove the centre of each cupcake top and spoon cream into the cupcakes, then replace the tops.
Chocolate cream frosting
ingredients:
200ml whipping cream
50g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g dark chocolate
50g light brown sugar
100g icing sugar (or more to taste)
1 packet instant hot chocolate.
Essentially, this is the same as the filling but with butter and more sugar. You may want to tweak amounts to match the chocolate you are using and your taste for dark to milk chocolate, but it is the same process as the above. Just beat the butter in the bowl first, then add the cream, then everything else.
Frost the cupcakes with a knife or spatula, then pile on chocolate sprinkles, Malteasers and any other chocolate you have left in your cupboard.
xlovesx
PS: if this weekend behaves as it should, I might actually do something crafty with paper! It it’s positively shocking, I know.
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