Recipe: Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

With a 3000 word essay due it seemed like the perfect time to procrastinate by doing a bit of baking.

I needed a simple recipe that was easy to do in my student flat so cupcakes seemed like the obvious choice. It was a toss up between two festive favourites; Ferrero Rocher or Chocolate Orange. However with the smallest box of Ferrero Rocher costing £5.50 my meagre budget was much better suited to the humble Chocolate Orange coming in at £1.25.

The look of these cupcakes is inspired by chocolate orange cupcakes made by the amazing Jane at Jane’s Patisserie, however the recipe is one of my own.

Makes: 12 Cupcakes

For the Cakes:

200g Softened Butter

200g Caster Sugar

4 Eggs

200g of Self Raising Flour

50g of Cocoa Powder

50ml of Milk

2 Teaspoons of orange extract

For the Icing/Decoration:

250g of Softened butter

500g of Icing sugar

3 Tablespoons of milk

2 Teaspoons of orange extract

Orange gel food colouring

—-

Terry’s Chocolate Orange

80g of Dark Chocolate

Edible gold glitter

Method:

1.Preheat the oven to 170°C/340 F/ Gas Mark 3

2. Beat the butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy.

3. Add the self-raising flour, cocoa powder, milk, eggs and orange extract and then beat again until everything is combined.

4. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake cases and then spoon the mix into the cases.

5. Bake the cakes in the centre of the oven for 20-25 minutes until the cupcakes are well risen and springy to the touch.

6.Remove from the oven and allow to cool thoroughly before decorating.

7. To make the buttercream beat 250 grams of softened butter until it is pale and smooth. Then gradually add the icing sugar a bit at a time, followed by the milk, orange extract and orange food colouring. Beat everything together until the buttercream is light and fluffy and it is the desired shade of orange.

8. You can pipe the buttercream on to the top of your cupcakes (I used a Wilton 1M tip) or you can just spread it on with a knife.

9. Melt 80g of dark chocolate and then drizzle it over the cupcakes.

10. Finish each cupcake off with a segment of Terry’s chocolate orange. The sprinkling of edible gold glitter is an optional festive touch.