Apologies for the lack of blogging lately, i've been doing lots of Christmas baking (Christmas puddings, gingerbread men etc) so the cupcakes were a bit neglected!
Our friends invited us to Christmas lunch this weekend and to help out i made the Christmas pudding and these Primrose Chocolate and Peppermint cupcakes as treats for the guests.
I'm probably over using the Primrose book of late, but i needed to have the guarantee that the recipe would work (sorry Hummingbird!)
The base of the cupcakes is a basic chocolate sponge, but this is the first time i've needed to use real dark chocolate rather than cocoa powder. Definately take Primrose up on their advice to use dark chocolate with 75% or more cocoa, i chose Green & Black's dark chocolate with 85% cocoa and boy did it make all the difference! The cupcakes turned out rich and moist, which i'm sure is down to the use of real dark chocolate.
The peppermint buttercream was just a basic buttercream with the addition of a subtle dose of peppermint essence. My advice would be to make up the buttercream first and then add the peppermint after and taste until you get the desired amount. For topping i bought some cheap candy canes from Tesco and crushed them up with a rolling pin.
These cupcakes went down really well with my friends and they were definately my favourites so far. The sponge requires slightly more effort than other versions of chocolate cupcakes, but its definately worth the extra time.
Baking Housewife Rating: 9/10
They certainly are stunning looking cupcakes.
ReplyDeleteI agree - these look gorgious. I've enjoyed reading my Primrose book, but still haven't got around to baking anything from it yet
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