I  know,  you’re  probably  looking  at  this  post  and  thinking  what’s  it  got  to  do  with  my  writing  considering  that’s  what  I  generally  post  about  on  here.  But,  before  I  became  an  author  I  had  my  own  cake  business,  making  lots  of  tasty  treats  like  the  picture  above.

Late  last  night  I’d  been  asked  to  make  these  beauties,  and  after  uploading  this  photo  to  social  media,  requests  for  the  recipe  came  filtering  in.  So  I’m  sharing  my  secrets  to  a  chocoholics  dream.

This  recipe  makes  12  cupcakes,  16  if  you’re  lucky.

Ingredients
Cake Batter:                                                                                           Buttercream:
200g  Margarine                                                                                   100g  Unsalted  Butter
200g  Caster  Sugar                                                                              100g  Dark  Chocolate
4  Eggs                                                                                                   1tsp Vanilla Extract
1tsp Vanilla Extract                                                                               350g  Icing  Sugar
100g  Dark  Chocolate                                                                          Pinch  of  Salt
50g  Cocoa  Powder                                                                              Milk
160g  Self-Raising  Flour
1tsp  Baking  Powder
100g  Dark  Chocolate  Chips

 
Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases.

Place the margarine and caster sugar into a bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix well, adding the vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, melt the dark chocolate and add to the egg mixture. At this point, you’ll want to bathe in the chocolate river. Please try to resist. Sift in the self-raising flour, baking powder, and  cocoa, leaving a little of the flour behind. Slightly mix it together – you don’t need to go crazy here. Over-mixing flour makes the batter dense once it’s cooked, and we haven’t finished adding our ingredients. Go easy! Put the dark chocolate chips in with the leftover flour (it only needs to be a tablespoon or two) and make sure those chips are covered in the flour mix. This stops the chocolate chips from sinking to the bottom of the cake when they cook. Handy little tip! Mix the batter until there’s no more dry ingredients (do this with as little mixing as you can, remember dense cakes are heavy!) Using an ice cream scoop, divide the batter into the cases and bake in the oven for 20 minutes, until cooked.

For the buttercream, add the butter into a bowl and mix until softened. Sift in the icing sugar and combine. It might look like breadcrumbs here, but don’t worry – it’s not ruined! Melt the chocolate and add to the icing sugar mixture. Now, it might look like chocolate breadcrumbs. That’s okay. Don’t panic! Add the vanilla extract and milk a teaspoon at a time until it all comes together. The amount of milk you use depends on the consistency you’re looking for. I generally add around 3-5 tsps. depending on how much the icing sugar soaks up. Add a pinch of salt to offset the sweetness. Beat until smooth. Place in a piping bag with your favourite tip and pipe onto cupcakes when they’re cooled! Or, you know, just use a knife and spread it on. It’s your creation after all!

And Voila. Chocolate Heaven.

P.S. You can totally add whatever toppings you fancy – supermarkets have a wide variety of decorations nowadays.