The joyous time has come around again – PUDDING CLUB!!! It’s been a while and not as regular as we had hoped when starting it but never mind when a cake is involved!
We had more eaters than bakers this time, but due to the level of richness of the three puddings made, I think any more and we would have had even worse sugar highs. To be honest, we did end up eating a lot of sweet treats, drinking a lot of a wine (and on a school night – a Monday no less!), having a huge sugar high whilst googling hot shirtless men, then old school r’n’ b tunes and turning my tiny lounge into a mini rave. It was brilliant, a nice group of friends, just laughing and having fun- although the level of estrogen coming from my flat would have choked a whole male rugby team!
I think have a huge amount of time to come up with something to make so again turned to my old favourite recipe for chocolate brownies and used it as a base for cupcakes then tarted up the mix.
The joy of my job as a new food product developer is that companies are always sending in weird and wonderful samples that they think will work well in the items we make. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes not so much! So not to waste the samples we normally share them amongst the staff, again some items go quicker than others, chocolates, fruit juices, booze, chopped prunes not so much. I’m currently in the process of moving flats so trying to work down all these random collections of samples (if anyone has any recommendations for 1kg of star anise or 2kg black treacle – please let me know!!), one big tin of red cherries needed to be used up. Cherries + Chocolate = Classic. So this is my take on Black Forest cupcakes…kind of.
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| Homemade jam with the least attractive label ever |
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| Cherry loaded |
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| Frosting baby |
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| Tad-da! |
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| The other offerings to the pudding gods |
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| Left: Kate’s Shortbread, Salted Caramel and Chocolate Torte, Middle: Cat’s Lemon Sponge Right: My Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes |
I promise the next post won’t be a chocolate brownie based!!! Now, what to choose……
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Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes
- Total Time: 38 minutes
- Yield: 16 1x
Ingredients
- 250g Unsalted Butter
- 500g Caster Sugar
- 100g Cocoa Powder
- 100g Self-Raising Flour
- 4 Medium Free-Range Eggs
- 1/2tsp Almond Extract
- 3 tbsp Cherry Compote (or quality Cherry Jam)
- 300g Tinned Dark Cherries (or Cherries in Kirsch/Brandy)
- 300g Milk Chocolate
- 300ml Double Cream
- 15 Fresh Cherries (stalk on)
Instructions
- Oven to 170C. With flouncy cupcake cases line a muffin tin and set aside. I used my brownie mix on top which I wrote about in my Easter Chocolate post- but a quick refresher. In a large saucepan, melt gently the butter, sugar and cocoa powder until smooth. Fold in the flour and when cooled slightly, beat in the eggs, one at a time to make your brownie batter.
- Stir in the cherry compote, I used some homemade cherry jam, that defied me and wouldn’t set properly, so now use it on top of yoghurt and in baking. If using a lot of tinned or preserved cherries you can miss this out.
- Stir in the almond extract, drain the tinned or preserved cherries (if in kirsch or brandy you can spoon in a few tablespoons in the mix and save some for the frosting) roughly halve and add to the mix. Spoon into the prepared cases. Bake for 15-18 minutes, so the brownie is still gooey, as they will set a little bit more on cooling.
- While the cupcakes are cooling make the frosting, by melting the chocolate in a baine marie, to gently melt. Cool slightly and stir in the cream, this will make a soft ganache frosting, you can add slightly less cream if you want a firmer frosting. At this stage add a small amount of the saved kirsch or brandy. Spoon into a piping bag and decorate the top of the cooled cakes, then place a shiny cherry on top.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 18 minutes
- Category: Cupcakes, Chocolate
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: German
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