Frangelico Cupcakes

Last weekend I made some Frangelico cupcakes for my fiancé's sisters birthday lunch (for those of you that don't know Frangelico is a hazelnut liquor - great with coke or on it's own!) I was inspired by Natalia's recipe: http://www.how2cakes.com/frangelico.html and I will HAVE to try her Jaffa cupcakes one day soon!

This recipe was so quick and easy and I found the texture of the batter to be quite different from other chocolate cakes. It had a mouse like consistency and I was eager to see how they tasted.

As there were 5 of us for lunch I made one for each of us in a large purple baking cup and with the remaining batter filled pink paper cases.

In the oven they rose beautifully and I iced with Nigella's nutella buttercream frosting:

Nutella Buttercream

125g butter, room temp

75g dark chocolate, melted

2 tbsp Nutella

2 cups sifted icing sugar

Cold milk

- Cream the butter until fluffy, slowly add the melted chocolate (in a thin stream to make sure the butter doesn’t melt).

- Add the Nutella

- Slowly beat in the icing sugar, ½ cup at a time until the buttercream is fluffy and not too thick – if it thickens too much add 1 tablespoon of cold milk at a time and beat.

(Instead of milk I added Frangelico!)

I had some mini chocolate 'cigarettes' which I cut in half and stuck in the cake for decoration to resemble a chocolate sundae!

On tasting these cupcakes I think those cooked in the baking cups were a little dry - perhaps because the moisture was not trapped during cooking by a patty tin but was free to escape. But the icing was so delicious one hardly noticed the dry sponge if you got a load of icing in the bite!:-)

When I make these again I will check more frequently as I may have slightly overcooked them. And I will add an extra tbsp of Frangelico to the batter mixture to give an extra kick!:-)

Tip - add the cigarette's at the last minute as if stored in an airtight container they go soggy!

Enjoy!