Terry's Chocolate Orange Cup Cakes

I always associate Terry's Chocolate Orange with Christmas! They are about all year but everyone goes mad about them at Christmas time! Who knows why?

So, I thought I'd make a Cup Cake inspired by this festive (all year) treat!

The mixture is a little different to my previous ones (Wow, I know!! haha) as you can see below, orange extract of course and some coco powder to bring that Chocolate Orange favour to life!

The mixture is:

150g unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

175g self raising flour

3 eggs

1 Teaspoon of orange extract

Splash of baking powder

2 Tablespoons of coco powder

This part is the same as usual! Place all elements in a mixing bowl and whisk for 2 – 3 mins until the mixture looks light and creamy! Bake for 20 minutes, until golden (if you can tell!) or until a wooden skewer comes out clean!

While your waiting for the cakes to cool, it's time for the Buttercream! Use a block of butter (or a little less) then add icing sugar, milk, some coco powder (enough to change the colour) and add some orange extract till you can taste the favour really come through! About 2 spoons full should be enough, depends how orange you like it! I also decided to sneak some chocolate sauce in the Buttercream to make it extra chocolatey!

Whip the Buttercream for around 6 minutes to make sure it is extra smooth!

And that's how it's done! So, if you want a Cup Cake for Christmas and feel the way I do about Chocolate Orange then this may be the way to go for a festive treat!

Have a Merry Christmas! 

Strawberries & Cream Cup Cakes

This is a very quick & simple recipe if you wanted to do something different to the normal Cup Cake! It's perfect for little Afternoon Tea parties, maybe to replace scones? Sounds mad as scones are so yummy!

Again, use the standard cup cake recipe and add where necessary. This is for a batch of 12, so if you wanted to make more, just double, tripe the recipe to how many you wanted!

My standard mixture is:

150g unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

175g self raising flour

3 eggs

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla essence or extract, whichever you prefer!

Splash of baking powder

Very easy to do, just place all elements in a mixing bowl and whisk for 2 – 3 mins until the mixture looks light and creamy! Bake for 20 minutes, until golden or until a wooden skewer comes out clean!

Now, when the cakes are cooled, core out the middle of the cake and add a teaspoon of Strawberry Jam in and place the lid back on top.

For the topping, you can either use whipped cream and pipe this on to make it more the traditional 'Strawberries & Cream' Afternoon Tea!

But with mine, I've done a Buttercream. I use one block of butter, usually nearly a bag of icing sugar, a splash of milk and some vanilla essence. This time, I also used one vanilla pod, I find that the vanilla beans make the icing look & taste better!

Sparkly Strawberries – very simple, you can either buy edible glue or use a thin layer of left over Buttercream and coat the bottom of the Strawberry then sprinkle the edible glitter over the counter and roll the strawberry in the glitter until completely covered!

And that's my take on a Strawberries & Cream Cup Cake!