Baking can sometimes seem so overcomplicated that it makes more sense to just buy ready made. I certainly do that with brownies (who has the time?) but let me tell you there are cakes out there! Cakes which are both fun, relatively easy to make an awesome to look at. Enter the coffee, chocolate walnut cupcakes.
These started out so differently I can’t believe it. Firstly you need to go full out Great British Bake off and use Mary Berry’s Cappuccino cake recipe then you need to mix it up a little by adding chocolate drops and finely chopped walnuts to the cake mix (I used 100g of chocolate and 50-75g of chopped walnuts). The biggest change? Put the mixture into cupcake cases instead of tins!
Cook at 180 degrees and they cook wonderfully quick! I can’t tell you exact times just wait for them to be cooked through (skewer one once the tops are tanned and springy. They are done once the skewer comes out clean – but remember chocolate drops will leave a residue.) On a side note because of the mixture its worth cooking them a little longer than you perhaps would normally. I always find Mary’s mixtures a little heavy and it seems cooking them for a little longer often helps in making them a little less dense.
Now, the fun bit? Decorating.
We forget why kids love baking, its the experimentation and fun of decorating. You could just buy a piping bag and do a basic icing but then you could do this instead.
Make a mountain.
The icing, unlike Mary’s is coffee buttercream (with a little milk for smoothness) mixed with chocolate and the kicker… once you spread a little on the top of the cupcake (although cut the very top off first to make the mountain structure.) roll the cupcake it more chopped walnuts and/or place chocolate drops onto then add a little hat & icing sugar, suddenly your bake is fun again!
My favourite part of this was just experimenting and making half of them different, it just adds to the look and makes them a little more fun and less serious.
therealjlow 