Chanced upon ‘The Cupcake Hero’ theme while perusing random blogs & saw that COCOA was the theme for the month. The crew there say…”Well, let’s see your skills! Each month a theme ingredient will be named. The theme ingredient must be used in either the cupcake, the frosting, the filling or all of the above if you choose. Simple enough? I think so. I beg of you to be creative with this theme. Of course we will take any entries you guys bake up. With that said, go outside your comfort zone. Think up something new, exciting, different. Take cocoa to a new level. “
I tried…
Ever since I’ve seen After Eight Mint Chocolate Cupcakes on Rosie’s blog @ Rosie Bakes a Peace of Cake, I have been mesmerised by the very idea. Slept over it & had a brainwave one morning…peppermint comes from mint I guess, so decided to use mint fresh from the garden to introduce the icy cool. I must sound like I’m nuts, but I find silly stuff like this therapeutic & fun.
So I crushed mint leaves with some powdered sugar in the pestle & mortar to get the flavours out…inspiration from an Alice Medrich recipe where the sugar & citrus zest are rubbed together to enhance the flavours.
Made a thick chocolate ganache & stirred in the crushed mint.
Went a step further, crushed some more mint & flavoured the buttercream to top the little devils with!
Have been making chocolate cupcakes with cocoa ever since I can remember. Will sound strange, but it wasn’t until 2 years back that we began getting any kind of baking chocolate here! The supply is still very limited & often you will find the slabs all gone. People like me habitually buy them in bars of 1 kg & use them in a miserly fashion. Chocolate chips are unheard of in most shops!!! Hmmmmmmmmm…
Onto the cupcake recipe I have been using for eons…
Ingredients:
Flour – 1 cup
Cocoa – 6 tbsps
Baking Soda – 1/2 tsp
Baking powder – 1/4 tsp
Salt – 1/4 tsp
Butter – 1/2 cup (100gms)
Sugar – 1 cup
Eggs – 3
Vanilla Extract – 1 tsp
Water – 1/2 cup / boiling
Dark chocolate – 100gms
Cream – 2 tbsps
Mint leaves – 15-20
Powdered sugar – 1 tsp
Method:
Melt the chocolate in the microwave. Stir in the cream & mint. It should all come together. Divide it into 12 equal portions & keep aside as filling.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line a 12 muffin tray. I made 12 mini muffins in addition too from the batter that got left over.
Sift the flour + cocoa + baking powder + baking soda + salt. Keep aside.
Cream the butter & sugar till light & fluffy. Beat in the eggs one by one, followed by the vanilla.
On low speed, beat in the flour mix in 4 goes. Finally on low speed, gradually beat in the boiling water.
Put a tbsp of batter into each muffin case & top with mint ganache. Put in batter over this & fill it up to 2/3 rd’s full.
Bake for 20-25 minutes till done.
Cool on racks completely.
Buttercream: Beat 3 tbsps of butter with crushed mint + 1 1/2 tbsps of cream. Add in enough powdered sugar to get piping consistency.
Ice as desired with buttercream. Garnish with fresh mint leaves. Chill well & serve.
I had fun icing these beauties & loved the colours…deep chocolate & fresh, lively green. The buttercream was pretty too, speckled with bits of mint; tasted fresh & exciting too. The lily in the background is one from my garden & is my current passion.
Check it out…it went from bud to bloom in a matter of 2 hours!
