Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes!

When I say I think I've outdone myself with this one, I truly think I've outdone myself with this one!


The ultimate indulgence, these cupcakes consist of chocolate fudge cake inspired sponge, a chocolate ganache filling, a chocolate whipped cream buttercream icing, and the whole thing is topped with a salted caramel brownie! As I was going along I forgot to take pictures of the individual stages, sorry in advance about that!
I mean come on, just look at them!

I've always shied away from making chocolate fudge cake, for no apparent reason. I guess I just always assumed it'd be quite hard. When I settled on my plan for these cupcakes though I just knew it had to be a chocolate fudge cake base. 

Making the sponge was surprisingly easy though! To achieve that classic chocolate fudge cake texture, melted butter, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla extract, caster sugar, and soft brown sugar are beaten together in a stand mixer for about five minutes. At the same time, cocoa powder and instant coffee powder are mixed into quite a lot of boiling water until smooth, and then added to the mixing bowl too. Finally, flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda are folded in to the mixture. The resulting mixture is quite runny, but the resulting cake is amazing!


With the cakes in the oven I started on the filling. Coring and filling cupcakes seems to be my new obsession at the minute. I recently filled a batch of Cherry Bakewell Cupcakes with homemade cherry jam, and I've been loving it since then! Admittedly, I've never whisked up chocolate ganache before (and now I'm debating whether or not I've been making ganache wrong this whole time, are you supposed to whip it every time?), but by simply melting together chocolate in double cream and then whipping, you end up with a wonderfully light ganache that is perfect for filling the cooled cupcakes! 


 


Next up were the Salted Caramel Brownies to top the cupcakes with! The thing I love about brownies is they are so versatile, but these salted caramel brownies might just be the best I've ever tasted! A mixture of melted butter and melted chocolate are added to whisked eggs and sugar, before flour and cocoa powder are added. I then folded in some chocolate chips and, poured half of the mixture into the tin. I then piped a homemade salted caramel over the brownie batter, before topping with the rest of the batter! 

Whilst the brownies were baking, I attempted my first ever whipped cream buttercream. I didn't even know this kind of buttercream existed until I made these cupcakes, but it's so easy! All I had to do was beat together the butter and sugar, and then , once combined, add double cream and melted chocolate, whisking until light and fluffy.


As ever, to decorate the cupcakes I went with my favourite swirl pattern on top of the cake. I then topped each cupcake with a hearty chunk of the salted caramel brownies, and drizzled the finished cakes with the remaining salted caramel sauce!

For once, I have no criticism! These cakes turned out exactly the way I'd hoped they would. The texture, filling and overall look couldn't have gone better! I was a little worried that the top of the brownie pieces need some kind of decoration, but a drizzle of salted caramel sauce brought the whole thing together nicely!

Gibby x








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