| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 45 min |
| Prep: | 25 min |
| Cook: | 20 min |
| Yield: | 1 (12-cup) cupcake pan or 3 (12-cup) mini-cupcake pans |
| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 45 min |
| Prep: | 25 min |
| Cook: | 20 min |
| Yield: | 1 (12-cup) cupcake pan or 3 (12-cup) mini-cupcake pans |
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup self-rising flour
- 1/2 cup very soft unsalted butter
- 7 tablespoons sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Few tablespoons whole milk
- Approximately 1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted, or instant royal icing
- 1 to 2 tablespoons water
- Food coloring paste, I’m using Grape Violet
- Gold chocolate button (or any candy coated chocolate)
- 1 recipe Chocolate Ganache, recipe follows
- 7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, with a minimum 70 percent cocoa solids, chopped, or use chocolate buttons
- 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Put all the ingredients for the cupcakes except the milk into a food processor and blitz furiously. Then pour in the milk, and process again until you have a smooth batter. Divide the mixture between either the big muffin pans or the 3 small pans.
- Cook the big cupcakes for about 15 to 20 minutes, and the small ones for about 10 minutes, although you might need to keep a closer eye on the little ones. Cool the cupcakes on a wire rack.
- To ice the mini-cupcakes, mix the confectioners’ sugar with a tablespoon or 2 of water from a recently boiled kettle or cold water (according to package instructions) for instant royal icing until you have a smooth, spreadable paste. In both cases add water slowly: you don’t want this runny, and nothing is more irritating than having to start sifting more sugar. The merest, tiniest blob of food-coloring paste- in this case, as I said, Grape Violet – will be enough to bring a dizzy and rich-toned intensity to the proceedings; you can always add more coloring if you want, but again the important thing is to guard against having to do any more sifting. And if you have been too heavy-handed and landed yourself with a batch of unusable dark icing, then just make up some more plain white icing and add to tone down.
- Slice any peaking humps off the tops of the cakes with a sharp knife and then pour, from a dunked-in spoon, the icing over each cake until the tops are thickly and smoothly covered. Let stand for a couple of minutes until the icing has set a tiny bit and then dot a gold button or other decoration of your choice on top.
- Put both ingredients in a saucepan and, over low heat, cook until the chocolate’s melted. Whisk together with handheld mixer or electric whisk (for ease and preference), watching the mixture become thick and glossy. Spoon and smooth over your waiting cupcakes. . Let stand for a couple of minutes until the icing has set a tiny bit and then decorate in whatever way you want.
Reviews
amazing!!!
Nigela’s Ganache is amazing. This is my new favorite topping for cupcakes and cakes! I’m getting pretty good at it too! I’m learning not to mix or fuss with it too much, so it stays super shiny!
Simply Lovely Cup Cakes. King Arthur Flour’s web site has sugared flowers quite often,especially Easter Time. Miss Lawson has demonstrated how to ‘candy’ an organically grown pansy or similar small flower. Dead easy. She is The One I search out on a Regular Basis for my Baking requirements. Metric only way to Bake!
These are the best cupcakes you can ever make. Great with royal icing, and great with buttercream. I’ve made them twice and both times I had excellent results. I did notice that if you make them in a standing mixer (ie cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla then flour) you will get a more spongy texture. And if you don’t have a processor, by all means use a blender. You just get so much better results. In her book, she states that if you make it with the creaming method, she suggests to add a tablespoon of the flour between each egg and then finish with the rest of the flour.
These do not bake up like a cupcake, with a nice mounded shape. Inferior crumb testure.
My 4 year old daughter made these by herself, and they are wonderful! I gave them 5 stars for flavor, but I have to say they came out an odd shape. They looked a little like volcanos, with the batter “erupting” into sharp little peaks on top. My daughter thought they looked hysterical, so we’re pleased.