Taste: Cupcakes

Whatever suspicions and mistrust I have of cookbooks is amplified a hundred-fold by those which have an unknown author. When the book refuses to yield the name of an author at all, the book might as well be a stash of alcohol labelled "THIS IS NOT ALCOHOL" #nothinsus. So it, of course, makes perfect sense that I would fish out a book like this from the table of suspiciously discounted books at Dymocks and take it home with some sort of intention to actually use it. 
Of course, any such intention was swiftly thrust out the door


(Couldn't resist)
as I adamantly refused to part with the beloved tried and tested recipes that I usually use. 
Finding a recipe that I actually wanted to recreate was not easy, as I found most of the cupcakes in here uninspiring and lacking any sort of excitement. This, coupled with the fact I had no idea if any of these recipes were reliable, led to me settling on these simple chocolate chip cupcakes.

The cupcakes were okay and easy enough to make, but certainly not something I'm rushing to make again. The resulting cupcakes were still enjoyable but on the stodgy and dry side.  The quantities seemed odd from the start and the resulting batter was extremely thick, almost like a very wet dough. Also, I broke my beloved and seemingly invincible spatula whilst stirring the mixture. Not happy, Jan. 

So I've still included the recipe for the sake of the blog, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it. Admittedly, the cupcakes weren't bad; it's just that there are far better cupcake recipes out there, so if you have a decent go-to recipe for vanilla cake (I'll share mine later) just use that and add in the chocolate chips. And yep, that's branded flour #highroller #gettingpaper (but seriously, I wept in the Woolworths aisle when they didn't have any Home Brand plain flour left that day. The struggle is real).


Chocolate Chip Cupcakes 
Adapted from 'Taste: Cupcakes'
Ingredients
110g soft unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
175g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
110mL milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g chocolate chips

Chocolate buttercream:
140g soft unsalted butter
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1tbs milk
75g dark chocolate, melted

Method
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees and line a muffin pan with cupcake cases.

Beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs in three batches, mixing well after each addition.

Sift the flour and baking powder over the mixture and add the milk, vanilla and chocolate chips. Stir to combine.

Fill the cupcake cases (depending on the size of your cupcake cases you may have enough mixture for more than twelve) and bake in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and rest in the pan for five minutes, before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the buttercream, beat the butter, icing sugar, milk and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add the chocolate and beat until a pipeable consistency is reached. Decorate the cupcakes as desired. 





2011, Taste: Cupcakes, Hinkler Books Pty Ltd, Melbourne.