Quick Mud Chocolate Cupcakes

I flew out  to Brisbane after work yesterday to see my family over the weekend, so on Thursday night I decided to whip up a few cupcakes to bring with me. They were also the perfect opportunity to use my ladybird toppers that I had been saving for a special occasion. My dad is known to love a good cupcake with his morning tea, so I was hoping he'd like these...

When I first read this recipe from Women's Weekly  I thought it was very strange that the chocolate was melted with water. Surely that should be a cardinal sin of baking?! But it worked, and it was a very quick and easy recipe. The below recipe makes 12 cupcakes which you can top with your favourite chocolate icing.

Cupcakes
Ingredients
60g dark cooking chocolate
2/3 c. water
90g softened unsalted butter
1 c. firmly packed soft brown sugar
2 eggs
2/3 c. self raising flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/3 c. almond meal

Method
1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees celsius.
2. Put water and broken up chocolate and microwave on low heat in a medium bowl, stirring intermittently until melted and as smooth as you can. It will not combine perfectly - but don't worry.
2. Cream butter and sugar, then mix in eggs.
3. Stir in sifted flour, cocoa powder, almond meal and warm chocolate mixture.
4. Divide mixture between 12 cupcake liners and bake for 25 mins.
5. Stand cakes for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool.

Here an adapted recipe for the ganache I used. I like a semi-sweet ganache, so I mixed dark and milk chocolate.

Chocolate Ganache Icing
Ingredients
1/2 c. cream
90g milk chocolate
110g dark chocolate

Method
1. In a small saucepan, bring cream to boil then remove from heat.
2. Add broken up chocolate and stir until smooth.
3. Allow mixture to cool (refrigerate for 30 mins if necessary), then whisk until a good texture for icing your cake/cupcakes.

The cupcakes went down a treat :) The cake itself was rich and moist, and quite light. Combined with the ganache, the flavour reminded me a lot of the Sara Lee chocolate cake! Mum used to buy the Sara Lee cake sometimes when we were young, and in those days the cake was a bit smaller and she would divide it with precision among the 8 of us to avoid family arguments over dessert.. The slices were about a quarter the size of a cupcake and we would savour every delicious last crumb! :)

Love,
Ladybird x