Another post, another chance to point to Lay the Table and show off a different recipe than the one Becs used. This time it’s for big fat nommery Chocolate Orange Cupcakes.

The cake mix is a fairly standard mix, with a bit of good quality cocoa powder thrown in. On top of that you have a nice fruity orange sugar syrup, all topped off with some zesty orange frosting.

Takes a couple of hours all told, ideally with a day in the middle. 20 minutes cooking time for the cakes.

These ingredients make 12 normal sized cupcakes or 24 little ones.

Ingredients

Zesty Orange Frosting

• 150g icing sugar
• 100g cream cheese (full fat!)
• 50g unsalted butter
• The grated zest of two oranges.

Orange Sugar Syrup

• The juice of one orange (about 5 tbsp)
• 75g caster sugar
• 1 tbsp Cointreau

Chocolate Cupcake base

• 100g unsalted butter
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 85g self raising flour
• 15g cocoa powder

Instructions

Zesty Orange Frosting

1. Cream the butter and sugar.

2. Add the cream cheese, and mix this in too.

3. Grate the zest of two oranges and, you guessed it, add this into the mix as well!

   Don’t chuck the oranges though – you’ll need one of them for the syrup.

Orange Sugar Syrup

1. Juice one of the oranges you had left over from the frosting.

2. Bring the orange juice and sugar to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

3. Let the syrup cool, and then stir in the Cointreau (or other orange liqueur if you prefer).

   Yes, this means there will be a tiny bit of alcohol in your cakes. If you’d prefer there not to be, just add another tablespoon of orange juice instead at this point.

4. Leave to infuse overnight if at all possible to let all the lovely flavours intermingle. If you can’t wait, then start making the cupcakes now instead.

Chocolate Cupcake

1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC.

2. Cream the butter and sugar.

3. Lightly beat the eggs, and slowly add them to the mix – combine on a medium speed.

4. Once the sugar, butter and eggs are combined, mix in the flour and cocoa powder at a low speed.

   That’s your cake mix – nice and simple.

5. Put your mix into your cupcake cases, and from there into the oven for 18-20 minutes.

   I use a children’s plastic icing plunger to place my cake mix into cases. I find this is much easier than using spoons, and quicker than using a proper icing bag (which is use for the proper icing).

6. Once the cakes have cooked, leave them to cool for ten minutes if you’re making normal cupcakes, or five minutes if you’re making mini ones.

7. Prick the top of the cupcakes a few times with something pointy like a cocktail stick, and using a pastry brush coat the tops with the sugar syrup.

   Be careful not to splash syrup everywhere, but also remember that the syrup is fantastic and will keep the cakes lovely and moist and add flavour so don’t be stingy. Don’t be worried if you have a load of syrup left though – that’s normal.

8. Once completely cooled, you can ice the cakes using your preferred method.

9. Finally, eat the damn cakes!

Last weekend was Becca’s birthday, and since I’d been promising her I’d make her a birthday cake I ended up scouring the internet for a nommy sounding recipe. Somehow I managed to miss the fabulous sounding recipe that Becs recently posted on Lay the Table, and instead settled on one from the BBC Good Food website, even though if I’m honest it didn’t visually appeal to me too much. As Becca said about the Good Food cake: “It looks like a f*cking breezeblock!”.

I’m ridiculously happy that I looked past that initial photo. What I ended up with after I tweaked things a bit was frankly fantastic. It’s ridiculously rich though, and definitely not something I could see myself making every week – it’s most certainly a treat cake.

Takes one hour and fifty minutes – twenty minutes preparation of the cake, one hour cooking, half an hour icing.

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 250g self raising flour
• 250g soft brown sugar
• 50g cocoa
• 250g plain chocolate
• 250g butter
• 4 eggs
• 200ml water

For the sauce and icing:

• 150g plain chocolate
• 250g milk chocolate
• 300ml single cream
• 25g butter
• 700g icing sugar

Instructions

The Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC.

2. Mix the flour, sugar and cocoa in a bowl.

3. Melt the chocolate, butter and water together in a pan.

4. Allow to cool slightly, and beat the wet into the dry mixture along with the eggs.

5. Dollop your mixture into a cake tin and bake for one hour.

The Icing

1. Whilst the cake cools, it’s time to make the icing.

   Melt the chocolate, butter and single cream in a pan, and mix until it becomes smooth and comes together.

2. Allow the sauce to cool for about 20 minutes.

3. Beat in about 250g of icing sugar.

   At this point the sauce should be rich, thick and dark.

4. Slice the cake in half, and spread as much of the sauce as you want between the slices. Put the top of the cake back onto the bottom.

5. Beat in the remaining icing sugar.

   The sauce will now have become icing, will be a lot lighter in colour and will form peaks in your bowl.

6. Apply the icing to the cake. Make it as messy as you want – there’s something magical about a fully iced cake covered in dozens of little peaks and troughs.

7. Allow the cake to set.

   Over the next couple of hours the icing will harden, allowing it to crunch when you bite into it. The inside of the cake and the rest of the icing will remain wonderfully moist and rich.

8. Host a party, or take the cake into work. This is one cake you certainly don’t want to keep to yourself.