#55 Chocolate Birthday Cupcakes

Store-cupboard friendly & a little bit too easy to eat

We did it. We survived our first kids party full of sugared up 5 year olds. It was equal parts wonderful and overwhelming, but of course the star of the show, my darling Finn had the best time ever.

Since his birthday was technically last weekend, I still wanted to make something special and easy to rustle up (and party bag friendly). So, without further ado- here’s my favourite Birthday Cupcake recipe. You can totally buy a good quality frosting if you are short on time!

Chocolate Birthday Cupcakes

Ingredients

(for the cake)

• 250g Plain Flour

• 200g Golden Caster Sugar

• 50g Cocoa Powder

• 1 Tsp Baking Powder

• 3g Flaked Salt

• 2 Large Eggs

• 300 Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips+25g to scatter

• 185g Sour cream (or yoghurt)

• 120ml Vegetable Oil

• 120ml Whole Milk

• 1 Tbsp Vanilla Bean Paste

(VANILLA Icing Base)

• 250g Salted Softened Butter

• 400g Icing Sugar

• 2 Tbsp Vanilla Bean Paste

• 3 Tbsp Cream

• 1/2 Tsp Salt

(CHOCOLATE ICING)

• 130g 60% Dark Chocolate- melted and cooled slightly to room temperature

• 2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 210/190 C Fan. Add cupcake cases in a 12 hole muffin tin.

2. Whisk all the dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside.

3. Beat the butter together until fluffy and pale, then crack the eggs in one at a time. Beat again. Add the vegetable oil and sour cream and mix to combine. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients bowl and beat together until smooth, and finally add the chocolate chunks.

4. Evenly spoon the cake batter 2/3 way up the cupcake cakes and scatter a few extra chocolate chips on top of each. Bake for 5 minutes then reduce the heat to 190C/170C Fan. Bake for 15 minutes.

5. Allow to cool completely.

6. To make the icing, add the softened butter into your stand mixer along with the icing sugar. Beat together on a medium speed using the beater attachment for 5 minutes until soft and white and fluffy.

7. Add the Vanilla, cream and salt. Beat again to evenly combine.

8. Take out half the vanilla icing and beat through the melted chocolate and cocoa powder. Add both flavours of icing into piping bags fitted with your chosen nozzle and pipe over each cooked cupcake.

9. We got our kids involved in the sprinkle decoration, but feel free to go as wild as your heart desires.