Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Fudge Icing

So here is the final post from the birthday weekend.  To accompany the citrus cupcakes I made for the fiancé, I made chocolate cupcakes for the fiancé's sister.  And, as followers of my blog may know by now, I just had to add Nutella in there somehow since the girl is a Nutella fiend!

Now I admit, I had not actually worked out what recipe I was going to use for these cakes until the day I was making them.  I knew it would involve chocolate and Nutella but that was it.  I did briefly consider making the Nutella cupcakes I had made previously but they are over-complicated and I didn't have all the ingredients.  So I figured a nice, simple chocolate cake would do the trick and I would add a Nutella frosting.  Ideally, I wanted to try and make a fudge icing using the stuff because I thought it would be really scrummy. The recipe I ended up using for the cakes was for chocolate fudge cupcakes but I decided to add a little milk to the mixture to make it slightly lighter.  The recipe for the icing came from the same book.  I just substituted Nutella in place of the chocolate and hoped it would work (which it did).

The result was very well received.  The cakes were wonderfully light for a chocolate cake and the fudge icing is fantastic!  I kept licking the remains in the bowl when I finished frosting the cakes.  The birthday girl was very happy with them.

Recipe - adapted from 200 Cupcakes

Makes 6 cupcakes 

Cakes: 

• 60g/2oz butter
• 75g/2.5oz light muscovado sugar
• 1 egg
• 50g/1.75oz self-raising flour
• 50g/1.75oz cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp whole milk

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 6 hole tin with cupcake cases.
2. Put all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat together until light, creamy and smooth.
3. Divide the mixture between the six cases.
4. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
5. Transfer to a wire rack to cool before frosting.

Nutella Fudge Icing:

• 50g/1.75oz Nutella
• 1 tbsp milk
• 25g/1oz butter
• 40g/1.5oz icing sugar
• Sprinkles for decoration

1. Put the Nutella, butter and milk into a small saucepan and place over a low heat until the butter and Nutella have melted.  Make sure to stir often to prevent burning.
2. Transfer to a clean bowl and sift in the icing sugar.  Whisk the mixture until it is smooth.
3. Leave to rest for about half an hour to allow it to firm up a little.
4. Give it a quick stir and then spread over the top of the cakes, one at a time.  Be sure to add your decoration to the cakes immediately after applying the icing otherwise it will firm up too much to do so.