12 Days of Blogmas - Day #10 | Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Shopping List:
Recipe will make & ice 8 cupcakes.
For the cakes -
75g self raising flour
90g caster sugar
110g butter
2 eggs
30-50g cocoa powder (depending on how much you love chocolate - I used 40g)
1 flat teaspoon baking powder
For the icing -
160g icing sugar
80g unsalted butter
1 Terry's chocolate orange; around 10-12 slices
milk to loosen


Method
1. Preheat oven to 200° (Gas mark 6).
2. Over a pan of boiling water, place a bowl on top and add your slices of chocolate orange. Stir frequently to prevent burning. Once melted, set aside to cool. You'll need to stir this every now and again to make sure it doesn't set.
3. In another bowl, add butter and caster sugar and mix well.
4. Gradually add sifted flour and eggs combining as you add them. Add cocoa powder and continue to mix.
5. Pop the batter into cupcake cases (mine were from Asda in case you were wondering) and put them in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Don't forget to stir your chocolate!
6. Get your cupcakes out the oven and leave to cool.
7. Going back to your chocolate, add 80g of room temperature butter and mix until glossy.
8. Gently fold in your icing sugar.
9. If the mixture looks lumpy and is beginning to form a paste and a few drops of milk and mix continually. Only add a small amount of milk at time but if you do over do it and the mixture becomes too runny, add some more icing sugar.
10. Spread icing over the cupcakes and leave to set for 10-15 mins.
11. Decorate as desired - I went for festive & adorable.

I love baking at Christmas but I'm not a huge fan of traditional Christmas desserts but I am however, a HUGE fan of chocolate orange and thus these were born! I decided against adding orange to the cupcake batter too as to not over do it but you could easily do so by grating some orange rind into the mixture. These were absolutely delicious and one that I'm going to bring back every Christmas from now on. It does hurt my heart though that chocolate oranges are only around at Christmas - God damn you Terry!


Do you enjoy baking at Christmas? What's your favourite thing to make?

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