Mini Cupcakes - Chocolate and Rose Flavours

There is something absolutely addictive about these mini cupcakes. Perhaps it's because they taste soooo good and each one is just a mouthful, prompting the thought 'well there's no harm in having just one more'. Perhaps it's because they look so daintily pretty, like something out of a 1950's tea party with their little buttercream tops resembling flowers or sweet sea anemones. Whatever the reason, these little babies are extremely popular. When I served them for a 60th birthday party this week they didn't last long!

Recipe
Makes 35, so serves approx 15 (2 or 3 mini cupcakes per person)
Base and icing recipe adapted from the one given on website Forkd by the intruigingly named lukkie_shipwreck. See her recipe online here. 
Chocolate icing recipe adapted from Xanthe Milton's one for Easter Nest Cupcakes in her gorgeous book Eat Me. Buy the book on Amazon.

for the batter:
125g unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
125g self raising flour
125g golden caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons milk

for the chocolate batter flavour:
30g dark chocolate (70% solids)
1 tablespoon cocoa powder

for the rose batter flavour:
half a teaspoon rose water
grated zest of half a small unwaxed lemon

1. Turn oven to 190C (170C fan ovens). Fill several mini muffin pans with mini cupcake cases.

2. In a large bowl, throw in all the batter ingredients except the milk, and beat well until combined.

3. Next add the milk, and stir again.

4. To make the two flavours, place half the batter into a second large mixing bowl.

5. To make the chocolate batter, melt the chocolate over a low heat in a saucepan before leaving to cool for a moment. Add the cocoa powder to the batter in the first bowl, and stir carefully. Then pour in the melted chocolate and continuing stirring gently until the batter is smooth and combined.

6. To make the rose batter, stir the rose water and grated lemon zest into the batter in the second bowl.

7. Use a teaspoon to carefully spoon the chocolate batter into the cases, and then the rose batter. Fill the cases until they are two thirds full. My 2 mini muffin trays hold 12 cupcakes each, so I filled them and baked the cupcakes in several batches, covering the leftover batters under plates and cooking the final batch when the first had come out of the oven.

8. Place the mini muffin trays into the oven and bake for 14-15 minutes. You'll know they're done when a skewer comes out clean.

9. When done, leave the cupcakes for a couple of minutes before placing them on a wire rack to cool, and put the next batch of cupcakes to bake in the oven. When all are baked, leave them to cool on the rack and you can get on with the icing.

for the rose icing:

300g icing sugar, sifted 

150g unsalted butter, room temperature

half a teaspoon rose water

pink food colouring tint paste

7. Combine the butter and icing sugar. Stir in the rose water and mix together. Add a pin prick of colour tint (I used Dusky Pink by SugarFlair), and gently stir it in.

8.  Get a pint glass. Place a piping bag with a star nozzle inside the glass, so that the nozzle is on the bottom of the glass. Fold the piping bag edges over the glass rim. Spoon the rose icing into the piping bag, then carefully take the bag out of the glass and twist the end of the bag so that the icing is well contained.

9. Pipe the icing over the rose cupcakes and add any sprinkles or sugar flowers you fancy to decorate.

for the chocolate icing:

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

42g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

142g icing sugar, sifted

half a teaspoon vanilla extract

60ml double cream

170g unsalted butter, room temperature

10. Melt the chocolate over a low heat, and then leave to cool.

11. Mix the icing sugar and cocoa powder in a large bowl. When combined, beat in the butter.

12. Add the vanilla extract, cream and melted chocolate to the icing, and whisk briskly for at least 3 minutes until smooth and the colour has lightened.

13. Follow the same method as before for icing the cupcakes, using a second piping bag, and piping the icing onto the chocolate cupcakes before adding any decoration you like.

These mini cupcakes were idly baked while listening to Roberta Flack's album Killing Me Softly