Mint Madness

My beloved cupcakes are back on my blog! all is well the world....and they've gone all minty. It been ages since I've posted cupcakes,Mint and Chocolate have been on my mind since my twin bought home some peppermint essence. I've been waiting to make them because...errr.....I wanted to purchase some nice dark brown cupcake cases to put them in .......don't judge me! If I'm gonna make something I want it to look amazing, so my head colour co-ordinates my bakes and that is the ONLY way they can look......admit it they would have just looked silly with blue cases right? Just don't ask how long I  actually waited!

Moving on from my baking vanity, to these minty lovelies which have a rich Dark Chocolate base.They are topped with a Peppermint Buttercream and some have been flourished with chocolate chips.I used The More Than Occasional Baker's chocolate cupcake recipe which was amazing! A lovely moist chocolaty sponge with some serious chocolate flavour, they were even better the next day. I used 70% Lindt Dark Chocolate which has a really high cocoa content, so you if ate one on its own it was a tad bitter but they balanced out once paired with the sweet Peppermint Buttercream. They complimented each other beautifully making one hell of a cupcake! The choc chips added a nice crunch which added a different texture.

I'm always looking for great rich Chocolate cupcake and find it interesting how different they can taste depending on whether the recipe calls for Buttermilk,Yogurt or Sour Cream. Ros's recipe called for Sour Cream which was a first for me, I think it added a  lot to the texture of the cupcake. I think that's something I might dedicate some posts to.... my search for the best chocolate cake/cupcake recipe which will require tasting a lot of Chocolate cupcakes....it will be hard.....but I'll manage..... SOME HOW.

For the Buttercream  I creamed 150g of Lurpak with 250g of Icing Sugar to which I added  just a teaspoon of the Peppermint Essence. This amount gave it a lovely Peppermint flavor any more would have been overpowering, lastly a splash of milk which made the Buttcream nice and creamy. I used a tiny bit of the Wilton Lime food colour gels.

Commitment!...I going to put it in writing now... I really want to get regular on my blog so I've decided that Monday evenings are going to be my official post night, I'm gonna try my very best to post something every  Monday (InshaAllah) so do please keep an eye out.

PS Would love it if you could point me in the direction of your fave chocolate cake/cupcake recipe...I'd love to give them a try!