The best chocolate cupcakes

Olivia, the female lead in my latest work-in-progress, loves to cook, as does Georgia in Gray is my Heart, so I thought I'd add a few of their recipes to my blog. I can just imagine them cooking these cakes for Nye, Xavier, and the rest of the Blackwood team!

WARNING: This recipe makes A LOT of cakes. The first time I made it, I didn't realise and ended up feeding most of my colleagues and neighbours too!

Here's my effort:

These won second prize in the UK's Great Parliamentary Bake Off (don't ask!)

CAKE INGREDIENTS:

3 oz. (85g) dark chocolate

1.5 cups (335ml) of hot coffee (decaf is fine)

3 cups (620g) caster sugar

2.5 cups (337g) plain flour

1.5 cups (172g) unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1.25 teaspoons of salt

3 large eggs

1 cup (236ml) of vegetable oil

1.25 cups (355ml) of full-fat buttermilk

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

CAKE DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 300F / 150C / Gas mark 2.
2. Break up the chocolate and melt it in the hot coffee.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, and salt.
4. In another bowl, beat the eggs until they go light yellow.
5. Add the chocolate/coffee, vanilla, oil, and buttermilk to the eggs and beat until they're combined.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the liquid and mix well.

The mixture will be a thick liquid. Pour this into cupcake/muffin cases until they're about two thirds full (these cakes rise quite a bit).

Bake for around half an hour, until a cocktail stock comes out clean.

FROSTING INGREDIENTS:

20 oz. (250g) unsalted butter (softened)

2 cups (230g) icing (confectioner's) sugar

1.5 cups (160g) cocoa powder

1.5 cups (350ml) golden syrup

16 oz. (450g) melted dark chocolate

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

2 pinches of salt

FROSTING DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix the icing sugar, cocoa powder and salt with the butter (I use a hand mixer).
2. Add the syrup and mix again.
3. Add the vanilla and melted chocolate and mix again.

Use a piping bag to squish the icing onto the cakes, or if you don't have one, you can spread it on with a knife.

You can decorate them with marshmallows/sprinkles if you like 🙂