Yummy Chocolate & Strawberry Cupcakes

Chocolate and Strawberries, two yummy things that I have wanted to join together in baking matrimony for a while now, so of course I have brought them together into a cupcake. My blog is certainly staying true to its name as I have been posting quite a lot of cupcakes recently...I really can't kick this habit......guess its a good thing I really don't want to!   

I'd been thinking about this combo for a while now...making something dark and chocolaty accompanied with a nice yummy strawberry buttercream. I decided to try Fold in the Flour's devils food cupcakes  as I wanted rich chocolatey cupcakes. The only changes I made to the recipe was I lessened the sugar, I went with 100g of golden caster and 100g of Demerara sugar. As with most of mudcake/DFcakes they always taste better the day after, once they have had time to really absorb all of the lovely ingredients.

The cupcake had a lovely,chocolaty, moist sponge due to the buttermilk. This was complimented byt the lovey,strong strawberry buttercream. Basically Delish!  My only slight criticism was that I would have loved a stronger chocolaty KICK, the cupcake had a lighter chocolate flavour then I would have liked. I imagine its due to the recipe only using cocoa powder and no melted chocolate. Apart from that it was gorgeous, loved it! 

 For the strawberry buttercream I just added a 2 teaspoons of strawberry jam to a regular buttercream recipe.  The pink with dark chocolate looked SO pretty! 

On another matter, does anyone know where I can get good paper cupcake cases I mainly use foil ones as they are reliable and won't come away from the cupcakes the next day...but would like some nice patterned paper ones. What have you guys found to be good+dependable?

Chocolate & Hazelnut Cupcakes

Hey Bakers,

From my blog you may have gleaned that I'm a little bit nutty about Chocolate +Hazelnut. By little I naturally mean obsessed with the flavour....I 'll try and chuck hazelnuts at anything that looks/smells/sounds like chocolate.
As my blog is called My Cupcake Habit, a chocolate hazelnut cupcake was inevitable. That is exactly what I have for you today, I kept the sponge normal and went nutty on the frosting. I decided to use a chocolate Ganache as I hadn't used that as a topping for my cupcakes before so I wanted to give that ago.I made these a while ago so bear with me as I try to remember what i did!

Recipe
200g of Milk Chocolate
150g of Double Cream
1 huge table spoon of Chocolate Hazelnut spread
Chopped Hazelnut to decorate

I heated the double cream, took  it of the heat to add the Chocolate & Hazelnut spread. I stirred till everything was combined and then let it cool. I piped with my Wilton 1M star nozzle when it had firmed up, I think I could have done better with my piping though.

This ganache gave me lots to think about, I shouldn't have used Milk Chocolate as it gave a very light chocolatey taste. Which was disappointing when I was after a smack around the taste buds of chocolatey Hazelnuttyness.
It was a silky, smooth chocolate ganache with a delicate Hazelnut taste.The lightness of the vital flavours was a bit annoying! Now I know what a ganache is like with cupcakes I  probably won't bother with it again as I think I could get a better stronger flavour with a chocolate buttercream .
All that written, it was nice it just didn't hit the Hazelnut spot for me.