Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

Hey'all :) 

I finally found some Peppermint Extract today, not that it was hard to find and bought some dairy free mint chocolates so all set for baking Mint Chocolate cupcakes! 

Step 1:

I began with my basic recipe, measuring the 3 eggs as per usual and weighing everything according to the sum of them (Butter, Flour and Caster Sugar). 

For the chocolate, I replaced around 50 grams of the self raising flour with cocoa powder, in addition to this 1/2 tsp of peppermint extract was added, not a lot as it can be very over powering and included 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence! :) 

Leave in a pre-heated over for 20-25 mins at 180 degrees C and voila! 

Step 2: 

For a few of the cakes I topped with chocolate spread that is of course dairy free, just to experiment. 

Antony Worrall Thompson Chocolate & Hazelnut Spread

Step 3: Icing! 

Recipe:

So I made two batches of icing; one chocolate and one mint. For the Chocolate Butter Cream I used Stork butter, mixed with icing sugar then a few tablespoons of cocoa powder and a dash of vanilla essence. My icing didn't go quite the dark shade of brown I liked so added a few drops of brown food colouring from the Wilton Gel colouring range so it didn't water down my icing. 

The mint icing is pretty simple, replace the vanilla essence with peppermint extract and a drop of green colouring! 

Step 4: Now for the best part... Two Tone Icing

Fill two disposable icing bags with the two icings, twist and snip the ends. In a 3rd icing bag with a nozzle place both your icing and pipe! It isn't that simple but once you have iced a few of your cakes it should work out! I topped mine with half a dairy free mint chocolate :) 

Sorry, this wasn't that well explained but Im sure you get the idea!

Much love, Kathryn x