Chocolate mini cupcakes

Last night I had a major chocolate craving. I really fancied something like a chocolate cupcake, but obviously you can't just make 1 cupcake, although I didn't intentionally set out to make 50....

 I think the quantity had something to do with my new mini muffin maker...

My new toy, a cupcake maker

...inside the magical machine, it can cook 7 little cakes at once

After much searching, I fell back on my favorite baking blog, howtoeatacupcake.net. From that I decided on Martha Stewart's One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes, partly because I hate washing up more than I need to. I was slightly concerned because the recipe uses buttermilk, which is something I've never used/had before. I improvised with a milk yoghurt mix which seemed to work pretty well.

Because a chocolate cake on its own is never enough I went for 2 types of chocolate buttercream frosting, a white and a plain. Overall the whole thing worked out brilliantly, although I think I had too much sugar and couldn't sleep.

My mum took some to work and everyone thought they had been bought in so I'd say they were a massive success.

For the cakes ( taken from howtoeatacupcake.net):
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup buttermilk (or a mix of half milk, half natural yoghurt)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


Directions
Preheat oven to 180C. Line fairy cake tins with liners and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, sieve together cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the eggs, warm water, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla; mix batter until smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl to check batter is well mixed.
Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about one-third full. Bake until tops spring back when touched, about 20 minutes, rotating pan once if needed. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

Making the 2 buttercreams

• For the buttercream:
• 150g chocolate
• 110g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 125g icing sugar
• 1 tablespoon semi-skimmed milk (possibly)

Beat the butter and icing sugar until smooth. 

Once the butter sugar mix is smooth melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of water. (here I melted 75g of white chocolate in one bowl and 75g of plain in another) Once the chocolate is melted, leave it to cool so it doesn't melt the butter when it is added to the mix. Once the chocolate is cool beat it into the butter sugar mixture ( I added half of the butter sugar mix to each bowl of chocolate). You may need to add a little milk or more icing sugar to get the right consistency. If your chocolate is too warm then you will think you have a thinner mix than you really do as the butter will melt.