Mint Mocha Cupcakes

As Jacob is currently finishing his last few exams and is therefore tied up with revision I have chosen to take the time to make some tasty treats and so as a result this post is a solo venture. Although Jacob took a short break to take the photograph for me.

In the last few weeks I've been pretty fascinated, perhaps even obsessed, with the mint/chocolate/coffee combination, in drinks and nibbles. I have decided to take it upon myself to incorporate this into something I love doing... making cupcakes.

Coffee and chocolate are a match made in heaven, a bit like tomatoes and basil or chocolate and hazelnuts. When these are combined with mint in the form of a mocha drink, it just puts a smile on my face, making me feel warm and happy. For these cupcakes I have made a moist yet light and soft sponge and slathered it with a lovely minty buttercream frosting.

Here is the recipe, hope you enjoy! NB. This is the first time I have made these cupcakes - I adapted a recipe which I found in a book to suit my needs and as a result came across a few little obstacles. However I have indicated in the recipe where this is the case and have made note of how to deal with them. Don't worry, the recipe isn't difficult, though I do recommend that you read it all the way through before attempting to make them yourselves. For example, next time, I would not add the bicarbonate of soda whilst the chocolate and coffee mixture is on the heat! In my opinion these really worked, so I certainly hope that you like them!

Mint Mocha Cupcakes

Makes 12 regular cupcakes or 36 mini cupcakes

 Ingredients

For the cupcakes	For the frosting
150 ml water	60 g margarine or butter
100 ml semi-skimmed milk	1 tbsp golden syrup
250 g caster sugar	200 g icing sugar
125 g margarine or butter	1/2 tsp peppermint extract
20 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)	A couple of drops of green food colouring
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp cocoa powder	To decorate
4 tbsp espresso powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda	Chocolate chips
250 g self-raising flour	Grated chocolate
2 eggs, lightly beaten Method For the cupcakes 1. Place the water, milk and caster sugar into a large saucepan. Heat gently over a low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. 2. Next stir in the margarine, dark chocolate, golden syrup, cocoa powder, espresso powder and bicarbonate of soda. Bring to the boil and then heat gently until all of the ingredients have combined. Be careful - when I did this the mixture puffed up and I very nearly invoked a volcano-like incident.  After a minute or two take this off the heat and leave to cool a little. 3. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C and line your muffin tin(s) with the appropriate sized paper cases. 4. When the chocolate and coffee mixture has cooled a bit, transfer it to a large mixing bowl and beat in the eggs and the flour until you have a smooth consistency - use a whisk for this. I can sometimes be a little impatient and so I started to add the flour and eggs whilst the chocolate and coffee mixture was still very hot. I suffered no ill effects from this, although I did add the flour first with the aim that it would cool the mixture down enough so as not to scramble the eggs. Needless to say, no scrambling occurred. 5. Next simply pour into your muffin tins ready to bake. The mixture is quite runny and so I transferred it to a jug for ease of transfer (though, naturally, I still managed to spill a little).  6. Bake in your preheated oven: 10 minutes for mini cupcakes and 25 minutes for full-sized ones.  7. Leave to cool in their tins for 5 minutes after cooking and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Happy Baking! Sasha	Chocolate covered coffee beans For the frosting 1.  Mix together the margarine and golden syrup with a fork until soft.  Note - The addition of golden syrup to the buttercream results in something of a fudgy texture which sets slightly more than a normal buttercream would. 2. Next add the icing sugar and mix thoroughly until well-combined and there are no lumps. 3. Add the peppermint extract and a couple of drops of green food colouring and mix thoroughly. Of course you can adjust the amount of peppermint you add, but I think a half teaspoon works well. You want just enough colouring to result in a pale green frosting. 4. Generously swirl your frosting on top of the cupcakes and decorate with grated chocolate, chocolate chips or chocolate covered coffee beans.