St. Valentine's Cupcakes

Hello everyone!

With Valentines Day soon approaching [one month peeps! might I mention it's also my birthday then...?] I thought I'd post a recipe to inspire you on a different type of gift this year. Why not home bake some cupcakes for your lover? Everyone loves cupcakes!

I baked these for my Christmas exam at school- the task was to create cupcakes and icing for a special occasion. I got the recipe from a cupcake book, 'Best Baking: Delicious Cupcakes (1) Made Easy'. To be quite honest, they're just chocolate cupcakes accompanied by vanilla icing, but that's what makes them so great. They're melt in the mouth, tasty AND easy to bake!

me looking ridiculously cheesy in a cupcake apron

Makes: 12    |    Preparation: 30 mins [and cooling]   |    Cooking: 20 mins

Ingredients:

Cupcakes

125g soft butter

125g caster sugar

2 eggs

150g self-raising flour

75g cocoa powder

4 tbsp milk

Icing

125g soft butter

200g icing sugar

a drop of vanilla essence

red food colouring

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F/ gas 4. Beat together the butter and caster sugar until its pale and fluffy. I used an electric whisk on a low/medium speed. Beat the eggs in one by one. You can add a small bit f flour to prevent curdling if you want, but I didn't bother and it turned out fine! Sift in the flour and cocoa together, so there's no lumps, and gently fold it all together. Mix in the milk, as much as you need, to make it moist.
2. Place paper cases into muffin tins- you can use cupcake tins but I prefer muffin as it gives them a better shape. Divide the mixture between the cases, about a heap tablespoon full. Bake for about 20 minutes [give a little, I usually find 30 minutes is best] and leave to cool on a wire rack when done.
3. For the buttercream icing: Beat together the butter and icing sugar with a small drop of red food colouring- so it is a pale pink- until you get a smooth but firm consistency. Use a piping bag [I used one that had a hole in the middle of the nozzle] to decorate the cupcakes with the icing. MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE SOME ICING IN THE BOWL! This is to make the middle part of the cupcake. Just add some more red food colouring to make it darker and pipe in the middle, so it looks like flowers. I also sprinkled pink edible glitter on them!

Bon appetit! 

- Rachel x