Serves: Four to Six people
Cooktime: 30 – 45 minutes
These cupcakes are a luxurious treat which seem unusual, however the components actually go really well together. A bonus is that chocolate ganache (which, when set, is also one of the ways of making chocolate truffles), is easier to pipe and decorate cakes with than buttercream or conventional icing and calling it truffle sounds ‘fancy’.
Cake Ingredients:
- 170g self-raising flour
- 170g butter (room temperature and cut into cubes)
- 170g golden caster sugar
- Three eggs
- Teaspoon of vanilla essence
- Pinch of table salt
- Two tablespoons cocoa powder
- Two tablespoons milk or water
Truffle icing ingredients:
- 300ml double cream
- 300g dark chocolate (I recommend 70% cocoa solids for this)
- 50g butter
- Sea salt
- Salted Pretzels
- Any other shop-bought decorations of your choice (nuts, sweets – go bananas!)
- Half teaspoon of good quality instant coffee powder (this amount of coffee enhances the flavour of the chocolate without making it taste of coffee)
Scroll down, past the photos, for the recipe.
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C, 160°C fan or Gas Mark 4
- Break and/or chop your chocolate and put it in a large heatproof bowl
- Put the cream, butter, and coffee in a saucepan and heat on a medium to high heat until the butter is melted and the cream is starting to simmer but don’t let it boil
- Pour the cream mix over the chocolate and fold it with a spatula until it is fully incorporated, thick ganache
- Put the ganache aside so it can set while you make the cake. I find it can help it along to use the spatula to spread it up the sides of the bowl from time to time to increase the surface area. You can set it faster in the fridge, but be careful it doesn’t go hard as you need to be able to pipe it later
- Align a cup cake tin with cases
- Put the sugar, butter and vanilla essence into a mixing bowl and start to work with a wooden spoon until there are no butter lumps. If the butter is a bit too hard, don’t be afraid to get your hands in there to work it at the beginning – just be careful not to melt it from over-handling
- Get an electric whisk and cream the sugar and butter – the time will depend on your whisk. For less powerful or hand whisking, you’ll want to go for between five and ten minutes. For a more powerful whisk you’ll only want until up to about five minutes. It should look yellow and fluffy when it’s creamed
- Sift the cocoa powder and flour into a separate bowl and mix the two together
- Add an egg and a spoonful of the flour and cocoa powder mix into the creamed butter and sugar and fold in with a spatula
- Repeat the above step for the other two eggs, doing them one at a time to make sure they incorporate fully
- Add the rest of the flour and cocoa powder mix, the table salt and the two tablespoons of milk or water and fold in until it is all fully incorporated
- Carry out a metal spoon test – find out more about this in The Tasty Egg’s baking guide by clicking here
- Fill the cases about half way – if you have lots of mix left, don’t be afraid to put more cupcake cases in another tin, otherwise eek the small amount of leftover mix between the existing cases
- Place in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes
- Once they are out of the oven, use a baking needle or a skewer to check if they are done – you can find out more about this in The Tasty Egg’s baking guide by clicking here
- Once they are cooked – firm but bouncy on top and producing a clean needle – take them out of the oven. Leave them to cool for five minutes in the tin
- Remove from the tin and place them on a wire wrack to cool fully
- Check your ganache, it should be firm enough to pipe but not hard. If it has gone hard, microwave it briefly to soften it but do this slowly and in tiny bursts so it doesn’t go back to liquid
- Add the sea salt a stir it through the icing before you decorate with it
- Once the cupcakes are cool, pipe the ganache into a swirly formation. If you don’t have piping equipment, don’t worry, just use a freezer bag with a hole or even a spoon and a knife
- Decorate how you want, with salted pretzels (crushed or whole) and other decorations
- Make sure you add the pretzels on the day the cupcakes will be eaten as they will go soft which takes away from the texture
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