Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes

Just a quick one today! This chocolate mint cupcake recipe makes the ultimate cupcake for chocolate and mint lovers, like myself. If mint isn’t your thing then just ice with regular chocolate butter icing.

Yay! Today is the last day of work before we embark upon the 4-day Easter weekend. Gosh, isn’t the year is zipping by very quickly? It is now only 44 days until my big trip to Europe and the States – pretty exciting but so much to do before departure!

Have an egg-cellent long weekend everybody!

Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes
Makes 12

For the cupcakes:

• 125 grams of butter
• 1 cup of white sugar
• 2 tablespoons of golden syrup
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of trim milk
• 2 cups of plain flour
• 1 teaspoons of baking powder
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 a teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teapsoon of vanilla essence
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/4 a cup of trim milk

For the icing:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 cups icing sugar
• 2 tbsps cocoa
• 2 tbsps hot water
• few drops of green food colouring
• few drops of peppermint essence

Cream together the butter and the sugar. Add the egg and beat well until combined. Beat in the 1 cup of milk. Sift in the dry ingredients and fold in. Add vanilla. Dissolve the baking soda into the milk and add to the cake batter. Mix extremely well. Divide the mixture up between a 12-hole muffin pan.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes at about 180 degrees. Set aside until the cupcakes have completely cooled.

For the icing, blend together about 2 tbsp of butter with 2 cups of icing sugar. Add a small amount of cocoa and a few drops of green food colouring. If you want a brighter shade of green that isn’t chocolate peppermint flavoured, omit the cocoa.

Sour Cream Berry Cupcakes

Meet Ming. Ming makes cupcakes. Infact she makes cupcakes, cookies and savouries. I don’t know a lot else about Ming expect she is just an ordinary homebaker like you and I, who likes taking pictures of her baking.

What I do know is that I haven’t quite come across another baking site like hers that makes me drool quite as much as I do when I’m scrolling through this one. Her website is a documentation of a project to test, experiment and create new flavours of cupcakes and other delicious treats. Sounds like a perfect little life to me.

Although I discovered this wee beauty a while ago, I have only made this one so far and it sure is delicious! I definitely recommend.

On a side note, I finally got myself one of these! I can now decorate to my heart’s content and not worry about the little wee things getting squashed!

Sour Cream Berry Cupcakes
Makes 10

For the cupcakes:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 115 grams butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups berries (fresh or frozen)

For the icing:

• 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 1/4 cup cream cheese
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tsp lemon rind, grated
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar on medium until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and add vanilla and egg. Stir in the sour cream.  Add flour mixture.  Stir in the berries.  Bake at 180 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

To make the icing, beat the butter and cream cheese together until it goes nice and smooth and creamy. Slowly mix in the icing sugar and blend it till it’s really well combined and then throw in the lemon rind and the vanilla essence and give it another couple of stirs. Ice the cupcakes once cooled and if you like, you can top with additional berries or decorate with some white chocolate.