Mocha Cupcakes

Ahhh, went back to school on Wednesday so finding time to bake has been pretty hard especially since I have a LOT of work to do this year with exams and what not :(, but of course Friday baking night could not be postponed!! By the way, thank you to everyone who voted in the Ben 'n' Jerrys voting cupcake and the winner Phish Food will be being made soon for you all to enjoy...I can hardly wait :D. Anyway this post is about the cupcakes that I made this Friday...which was Mocha Cupcakes...a moist chocolate buttermilk cupcake with a rich coffee buttercream frosting..I loved them and I dont even like coffee!! Its quite weird really.. I like everything coffee flavoured apart from coffee itself: iced coffee, coffee frappuccinos (gotta love them), coffee ice cream and now apparently coffee cakes..but not a warm cup of coffee! Oh well haha..guess its just not really my thing! I'm sure all the coffee lovers out there will love these cakes and even if you're not I think they are worth having a try just for the sheer moistness of the cake! I decided to try a new chocolate sponge recipe..this one using buttermilk, as I remember it made cakes super moist! After preparing the batter..and sampling of course..it tasted slightly odd and not very chocolatey so I decided to add about 50g of cocoa powder as well..which made it just perfect :). When I took the cakes out of the oven I thought they mightn't have cooked properly as the bottoms were slightly damp, but they were fine and it was obviously just because the cake was so moist! Well worth a try!! Enjoy!



The makings of a cake




Beating the brown sugar and the butter, it looks yummy already!




Pouring in the melted chocolate...a bit for the batter...a bit for me




Whisking in the flour




Filling the cupcake liners




All baked up!




Frosted, sprinkled and complete


Mocha Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcake
makes 20

170g unsweetened chocolate, melted
225g butter
385g dark brown sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
185g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
235ml buttermilk
50g cocoa powder *I added this*
25ml milk *I added this*

1. Preheat the oven to 175C(350F) and fill a muffin tin with liners, set aside.
2. In a large bowl cream together the butter and the sugar until fluffy, this should take about 3-5 minutes.
3. Beat in the eggs one at time, beating well after each addition, if any signs of curdling occur add a tablespoon of flour.
3. Add the vanilla essence and the melted chocolate and beat well.
4. Combine the flour, baking powder/soda and salt in separate bowl.
5. Alternate the dry ingredients (flour etc) with the buttermilk, im about 3 additions, into the cake batter.
6. After alternating the flour and the butter milk, in separate additions alternate the cocoa powder with the milk into the cake batter.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick is inserted into the centre and comes out clean. Allow to cool on a wire rack.


Coffee Buttercream

600g icing sugar
225g butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons heavy (whipping) cream
5 teaspoons coffee granules
2 tablespoons milk, warmed

1. In a medium sized bowl beat together the butter and the icing sugar, making sure no lumps of butter remain.
2. In a small microwavable bowl heat 2 tablespoons of milk and quickly stir in the coffee granules, beat into the buttercream.
3. Stir in the vanilla essence and beat in the heavy cream. Add more cream/icing sugar to achieve desired consistency. Frost onto cakes