Dark Chocolate and Cherry Cupcakes

Ingredients

100g Cherry “Stuff” SEE HERE

115g Melted Dark Chocolate (We recommend Callebaut)

200g Unsalted Butter

100g Golden Caster Sugar

100g Dark Brown Sugar

3 Large Eggs

30g Cocoa Powder

½ tsp Baking Powder

½ tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

200g Plain Flour

30g Sour Cream

½ tsp Vanilla Extract

Makes 12 Cupcakes

Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F/Gas 4

Buttercream

250g Block Butter (salted/unsalted…..Your choice I’m running away!!

500g Icing Sugar

• 100g Melted Dark Chocolate

• 100g Cherry “Stuff”

• 1 tbsp Cocoa Powder

• ½ tsp Vanilla Extract

  Ganache

  300g Dark Chocolate

  150 Double Cream/75g Butter

  90g Cherry Stuff

  Method

  Cupcakes

  Into your mixing bowl add the sugar, softened butter and cherry “stuff”. Whip these up on medium to high for around 2 mins until it is all light and fluffy. Pour in the melted chocolate and give a very quick combine, about 30 seconds.

  To this add all of the other ingredients and mix them on low for 30 seconds then scrape down and mix again for another 30 seconds. It's now ready to put into your cupcake tin.

  Transfer the batter to the cake cases and bake in the oven for 20 mins.

  Once cooked and slightly cooled transfer to your wire rack.

  Buttercream

  Using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment on add your butter and Cherry Stuff to the mixing bowl and beat this for five to seven minutes scraping down every two minutes.

  Add the vanilla, cocoa powder, vanilla and icing sugar to the butter and mix it all until light and fluffy, then using a paddle attachement mix on low, to remove the bubbles.

  It is now ready to use and will be beautifully silky smooth. Add boiling water if needed.

  Ganache

  Add your chocolate, butter, cherry stuff and cream into a microwavable bowl, place this in the microwave for 1 minute, then remove and stir thoroughly. Now heat again in the microwave in 15 second bursts, stirring each time until only very small pieces of chocolate are left. We do this so that the chocolate isn’t overheated, which can cause the chocolate to split. Within around a minute the temperature of the chocolate in the bowl will melt the remaining pieces of chocolate, leaving you with a beautifully silky ganache. You can now cover with clingfilm touching the top. Place this to one side until it’s thickened or cool enough to refrigerate.

  
  Assembly

  Using a 2D or 1M nozzle, push a hole into the centre of the cupcake, give it a wiggle and pull it back up. The middle section of the cupcake should have been removed if it is stuck in the nozzle, push a skewer through the top, to release it. Do this with each cake. Then cut a half-inch hole into the piping bag and squeeze some of the cherry ganache into the centre. Allow it to come to the top and use the scooped cupcake bit to form a lid. It will be higher than the cupcake don’t worry.

  To pipe the buttercream I didn’t use a nozzle as the larger cherry bits would have become stuck. So I did the same and filled the piping bag with the buttercream and cut another half-inch hole into the bottom. Using the raised area as a guide and holding the piping bag straight up I squeezed the piping bag allowing the buttercream to go wide and then slightly pulling up before releasing, forming a “blob”. At this stage, this didn’t look very wow but I melted some dark chocolate (50g) and cut a very small into another piping bag and did the same motion allowing the chocolate to pour over the top. I finished this off with a cherry on top.