Chocolate Cupcakes

It's been a bit of a long week, so I needed a bit of baking time today to relax. I made these chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate ganache centre and buttercream icing. Man, let me tell you...piping is hard. I had intended to try to pipe buttercream roses, but after the first few, I thought it was better to practice the basics first.

This is my first time piping buttercream though, so I can't beat myself up too much. As with everything, practice makes perfect, so with a few more tries, I'm sure I'll have it down. And I'm sure you can too, even if you've never piped buttercream before like me.

I did watch a few tutorials to get started. Here's the video that I found the most helpful. It looks like to pipe like Lynz does, I need some wider piping tips. However, I couldn't find any in my local supermarket, and there isn't a baking store here. So to make do, I just cut open my plastic piping bag so that the opening was round, and was about 2cm wide. This does work, I just need to practice my technique a bit more.

Although my piping needs a bit of work, I did manage to nail a fantastic buttercream recipe. The recipe is below, but here are some tips you should know before starting:

• Make sure your butter is room temperature, and DO NOT microwave it. If you microwave the butter, or if it's too cold, it won't hold air, and your buttercream will be a bit oily rather than light and fluffy.
• Beat the butter before you add the other ingredients.
• When you first combine the icing sugar, it will look strange. Keep beating, and it will become smooth and lovely.
• If you can, cover the bowl with something when you first start beating the buttercream to prevent the icing sugar going into the air. If not, it's not a problem, but be prepared to clean up.

Piping and buttercream aside, these cupcakes are absolutely divine. Because they're an oil cake, they are moist, spongy, and delicious. And the ganache in the centre is a really nice surprise. If you wanted, you could add a bit of coffee to the cake or ganache to make these espresso cupcakes.

These cupcakes are adapted from Lori's Chocolate Midnight Cake from Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat. You can buy the book here.

Chocolate Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

50g cocoa powder
300g caster sugar
large pinch of salt
250g plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tsp vanilla extract
125ml vegetable oil
300ml boiling water from a kettle
2 large eggs, whisked

Preheat oven to 180C. Line muffin tin with paper muffin cups.

Sift together the cocoa powder, caster sugar, salt, flour, and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Make sure it is well combined. Make a well in the centre.

In a separate bowl, measure out the vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and hot water. Whisk so it's slightly combined (it won't fully combine here), and then quickly pour into the dry ingredients. Whisk until the mixture is completely blended together and cooled a little.

In a separate bowl, whisk the two eggs. Then add to the cake mix and whisk until they are completely added. The mix will be very loose.

Using a ladle, pour the mixture into the prepared muffin cups. Fill about 1cm from the top as they don't rise very much. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean, turning the tray halfway through. Let cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack before moving on.

Ganache
100g double cream (weigh, don't measure!)
25g unsalted butter, cubed and at room temperature
100g 70% dark chocolate bar, chopped

Chop the chocolate and cube the butter. Place in a heatproof metal or glass bowl. Bring the double cream just to the boil on your hob. Pour over the chocolate and butter, and whisk to melt and combine. Keep whisking until the ganache comes together and is lovely and shiny. Let cool 5 minutes.

To fill the cupcakes, use a sharp knife to cut the centre of the cupcakes out, set aside. Or you can use a cupcake holer, but I don't have one, and unless you're making tons of these it seems like a waste of money. Fill a piping bag with the ganache. Pipe the ganache into the cupcake holes, and top the cakes with the cutout bits. Let rest 20 minutes for the ganache to set a bit.

Buttercream
250g unsalted butter, room temperature
2tsp vanilla extract
2TBSP cream or milk
500g icing sugar
Food colouring (optional)

Cube the butter, and whip with a hand mixer for 2 minutes until the butter has lightened in colour and is nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract, milk, and food colouring if using, and mix. Sift in the icing sugar and mix for 3-5 minutes until the buttercream is silky and light.

Spoon into a plastic piping bag, cut the opening so it's between 1-2cm wide, and pipe onto the cupcakes in a circular motion, starting on the outside and working your way into the centre. Store in the refrigerator.