Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago I posted a recipe that I discovered recently and loved it. Today's offering is a little different. It's a combination of a recipe from a book that accounts for 90% of my baking exploits for the last couple of years and an icing that my Ma made for pretty much every birthday when I was growing up. In my opinion it's a winner!

The book in question is the Hummingbird Bakery cook book. I have the original and recently acquired Cake Days as a christmas present - there are so many recipes that I haven't tried and a few that I've gone back to over and over again. The vanilla cupcakes are pretty special, nutella cupcakes - out of this world and steve's particular favourite, peaches and cream cupcakes are just delicious. 

For some reason, the recipe for the cakes are online here. I would seriously recommend these books - I've been so impressed how the recipes work out all the time and they taste soo good. So buy them :)

We got a Kenwood as a wedding present and I use it all the time. I'm not sure that I'm using the same attachment as in the recipe but hey, it seems to work! It's saved me so much time (and probably beefy arms)!

Part of the fun of photographing the stages as they happen is thinking about how to make things more aesthetically pleasing. Case in point is that I whisked the eggs and milk in this beautiful handmade jug my parents gave me for my birthday. It's simple and beautiful and it pours so well :) Beats my plastic jug every time.

  The one thing I'd say about the Hummingbird books is that it's worth following the recipe. When it says beat the ingredients until you get a sandy consistency, then wait until it gets there, it might take a while. The only thing stopping me in this case was the massive lumps of sugar that I didn't have the foresight to get rid of ;)

This is the point at which I deviate from the recipe in the Hummingbird book. Don't get me wrong, I love the icing they suggest and the vanilla icing is particularly good but this chocolate fudge icing is simple and delicious and isn't quite as sickly sweet. The basic concept is, melt milk chocolate and then mix in double cream. The first time I made this without my ma it was a bit of a disaster. I took the slow and steady approach with the cream and got this crumbly consistency - not what I was expecting! Turns out I just needed to be a bit more generous with the cream. I pour some in, mix and then add more until I have a sauce that is thick enough to spread.

When the cupcakes were cooled I spread on the chocolate fudge sauce and added three maltesers to each one, just for fun. :)

I've included this last picture to highlight what a world of difference it makes to shoot in natural light. The picture below was taken last night when the sun had set and it just looks too green to me. So I had another go this lunchtime and I thought it was so much better, even if I did have to get creative because half of the cupcakes are gone ;)

Do you like to bake? Let me know if you have any baking books that you can't live without. I'm pretty attached to the Hummingbird books but I could definitely be persuaded to try out other recipes. Just ask Steve, he can verify the ever growing cookery book collection that is taking over our kitchen!

Much love, Rach x