I first made these a couple of years ago and at the time, I didn’t write up the recipe because I hadn’t finished tinkering with it yet.
As a rule, we don’t like cupcakes. Pete has declared them too “cutesy”, and the ones we’ve tried in the past have either been too sweet, too dry or too boring. These, however, are the exception – they’re always a huge hit with family and friends.
They’re based on a Nick Malgieri recipe from The Modern Baker, but over the years I’ve amended the ingredients list substantially – reducing the sugar, salt and butter, substituting our homemade Greek yoghurt for the sour cream, and adding a piped frosting. Most significantly, I now use a 70% cacao dark chocolate (over here, it’s difficult to find the unsweetened chocolate originally specified) – this change necessitated a major rejig of the butter and sugar quantities.
The methodology, however, closely follows Mr Malgieri’s original instructions, and I bow to his genius here. The batter is made without a mixer, making these a great “early morning while everyone is asleep” bake, and the resultant cupcakes are moist, tender and absolutely delicious.
I’ve topped them with a simple butter and cocoa frosting, adapted from an old Mrs Field’s recipe that I’ve been using for years (this bit requires an electric mixer, but hopefully by then everyone will be awake). I’m still a bit tragic with a piping bag, but if you’d like more detailed instructions, my friend Mandy has a brilliant video tutorial here.
- 385g (1¾ cups) sugar
- 225g (1½ cups) plain (AP) flour
- ¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 185g (6½oz) 70% cacao dark chocolate, cut into small pieces (I used Callebaut Sao Thome origin blend)
- 250ml (1 cup) boiling water
- 110g (7 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
- 2 large (59g) free range eggs
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract (I used homemade)
- 130g (½ cup) Greek yoghurt (Pete’s recipe is here)
1. Preheat the oven to 175C (350F) or 160C (320F) with fan. Line 18 standard muffin pan holes with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, sifted bicarb and salt.
3. Put the chocolate into a large mixing bowl and pour over the boiling water. Allow to sit for a couple of minutes, then whisk until smooth. Add the melted butter, whisking, then the eggs one at a time, whisking quickly after each addition until smooth. The batter will thicken slightly as you do this. Whisk in the vanilla and yoghurt.
4. Whisk in the flour and sugar mixture in three batches, whisking well after each addition. Ladle the batter evenly into the lined muffin pans.
5. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, until the cupcakes are well risen and a cake tester inserted into the middle of the least cooked one comes out clean. Rest in the pans for five minutes before lifting out and cooling on a wire rack.
Frosting (adapted from recipe from Mrs Field’s Best Ever Cookie Book)
- 110g (7 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
- 190g (1½ cups) icing sugar mixture (powdered sugar), sifted
- 45g (⅓ cup) unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted (I used Dutched)
- 5ml (1 teaspoon) vanilla extract
- 30 – 35ml (6 – 7 teaspoons) milk (or as required)
1. Sift the icing sugar mixture and cocoa together into a medium bowl (omit this step at your own peril – you might end up with bitter lumps of cocoa and hard bits of icing sugar in the finished frosting if you do).
2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter in a large bowl, then beat in a third of the icing sugar/cocoa mixture and the vanilla. Beat in the remainder of the icing sugar/cocoa mixture alternately with as much milk as is required to create a spreadable frosting.
3. Scrape the frosting into a large piping bag fitted with a star nozzle, then decoratively pipe over the cooled cupcakes. The boys have declared that they like the cakes iced with small stars best – I’m told the big swirls put too much frosting on each cupcake. Pause briefly to admire your workmanship before sharing and scoffing!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
These look absolutely divine Celia! Love their glistening icing. Yum and nom!! :D
Thanks Padaek! They were fun to make too! :)
I love your icing and the sight of all those pert litlte swirls before I have had breakfast and the glisten and the promise is almost too much to bear ! How can I eat toast after seeing these ? hehehe xxx
You have no idea how much I’d love to be able to sit down with a cup of tea and share these with you.. xxx
I have to try these to see how the boiling water works in this recipe as mine has a different method :)
Tandy, I’m making a lot of hot water chocolate cakes these days – my family all seem to prefer them!
Your piping skills are fine and I like the adding of yogurt. I am adding yogurt to a lot of dishes that asks for sour cream. They do look yummy.
Norma, thank you! We’re using homemade Greek yoghurt all the time now instead of sour cream! :)
We are not usually great fans of cupcakes either but I like your tweaks here so I’ll put them on the list.
Celia I have just finished my first cup of Tea Craft Karavan, d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s! Love that strong black tea base with notes of roses and bergamot, the fragrance was divine. Thank you for the recommendation dear girl.
Rose, I’m so happy to hear that! I’m completely hooked on their Earl Grey!
Celia your cupcakes look delicious and I think I’d be first in line to lick the icing right off them before devouring the cake itself. I’m with Pete, though, cupcakes on the whole are too cutesie for me… and I really don’t like all those sickly sweet jobbies in the cupcake stores.
Liz, we’ve just had so many stodgy ones over the years. We’re not a fan of muffins either, so these cupcakes are really an exception, because everyone here absolutely loves them!
I completely agree with Pete’s verdict but these sound delicious! Dark chocolate will surely give these fellows the edge they usually lack. Can’t wait to try them out :-)
Ginger, I hope you like them as much as we do! :)
Oh they look gorgeous and of course cupcakes are cutesy that’s why we like them! I always use 70% in icing it counter balances the sugar
I go even darker than that – I use cocoa in the icing! The 70% is in the cupcake itself! :)
Your cupcakes look fabulous. I will give the recipe a go tonight as I love recipes where you don’t cream the butter and the sugar as I don’t have a mixer. I make cupcakes often because they are so quick to bake and as my partner likes to eat something sweet with his cups of tea, I can have a batch made in 20 minutes. I don’t always ice them but find the other benefit for someone undisciplined and a little bit piggy like me is that they are already portioned.
Carol, I hope you liked them! You do have a point about the pre-portioned serves.. :)
Gorgeous Celia! I use organic Greek yogurt in place of sour cream all the time, baking or not. Works great.
Thanks Ardys! We don’t buy sour cream at all any more, we always used yoghurt!
Whatever happened to what we used to call “patty cakes” or “fairy cakes”? Yet another language hijack to meet the global marketing market I think :(. They do look quite lovely and I love using Greek Yoghurt in cakes, so versatile.
You’re cupcakes look great. A very BIG THANK YOU for recommending Tea Craft. Their Chai is magnif.
Shelley, I’m so glad you liked them, thanks for letting me know!
I think patty cakes were actually a lot smaller – I still have a couple of patty cake tins, but it’s hard these days to find the paper liners for them!
What a fantastic recipe Celia – I will definitely be trying this as soon as I can get hold of some chocolate.
Thank you for the lovely mention and link! I have been searching for a specific icing nozzle but for love or money can’t seem to find one – I will share more icing tips when I do find it.
Have a beautiful weekend.
:-) Mandy xo
Mandy, maybe you should email me a photo of the nozzle you want, then I can keep an eye out for you as well? :)
You had me at chocolate…..say no more! xxx yum xx
Hahaha…these are chocolate on chocolate! :)
These look wonderful. I have another cookbook from Nick and haven’t looked at it in ages until recently. I made the brioche bread and am looking to make more. He really has great stuff!
He really is a wonderful teacher, isn’t he? I have three of his books now, and the recipes are fantastic.
They look so good Celia!
Thank you! :)
These look awesome, Celia! Shall have to give them a go!
Hope you like them as much as we do, Debby! :)
Your piping is beautiful! I love cupcakes for occasions but not just day to day.
Thanks Clare! You’ll possibly be making more of them now with baby E – many school now request that birthday cakes now be sent in cupcake or pattycake form! Saves the teacher from having to provide a knife and serving plates! :)
Hehe okay I’m going to ignore the fact that you guys don’t generally like cupcakes. We can still be friends that way! :P ;)
Yes, we’ll have to just agree never to talk about it again. :)
I usually only make cupcakes for birthdays and family celebrations for the same reason. Too sweet for me.
Have you ever tried using golden icing sugar instead of standard refined white icing sugar? I find it less sweet and it has a lovely caramel note that pairs well with chocolate. The only brand I have seen is Billingtons, but I am sure I have seen the icing sugar recently in Woolies. It is becoming far more widely available these days.
Tania, I haven’t tried golden icing sugar, but I’ll look out for it now. Thanks! I’ve seen golden caster sugar referred to in some UK recipes, but I haven’t seen that for sale here either, have you?
Absolutely. It’s the only caster sugar I use. It is not quite as sweet as white which I like. The golden caster is also Billingtons, and they also do light & dark muscovado which is what I use instead of other brown sugars. The caramel notes are divine. I have seen all the other sugars in Woolies, along with a Demerara and recently an organic raw. At one time Billingtons was hard to find but seems to be far more widely available these days. Also try your local gourmet deli. They should stock it. If you have problems let me know & I’ll send you some but if it is widely available in Perth I can’t see you having a problem :)
Hi Celia, nothing wrong with your piping skills. I’m not a very good cake baker, last time I made cupcakes with my niece you should have seen my piping, not very attractive at all and didn’t taste that great either…next time we make cupcakes I’m going to try this recipe. Thank you :)
Stef, the recipe is really very easy, but the piping takes a bit of practice. Of course, you could always just smear piping on the top with a spatula, the old school way.. :)
Younger teen has given up chocolate for a year – she would adore these!
Really? So young! I’m sure I didn’t make my first attempt to give up chocolate until I was at least 30. Then I gave up trying to give up chocolate.. :)
I keep begging her to go back on the stuff!
I wouldn’t mind some of those cupcakes :)
There’s plenty to go around – the recipe makes 18 of them! :)
Thank you! It didn’t take very long for all 18 of them to get eaten! :)
These look and sound incredible.
Thank you! :)
a good chocolate cake is hard to find – shouldn’t be but so many are disappointing and I find this with cupcakes too – I had a favourite chocolate muffin recipe which last time I used it was disappointing – not sure if this was me or the recipe that had changed. Must try again but will keep this one in mind if it keeps failing
Johanna, I couldn’t agree more – I’ve blogged before about my ongoing quest for the perfect chocolate cake. I’ve now got five or so that I think are bulletproof, but it’s taken a long time!
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2014/01/19/a-really-good-chocolate-cake/
I do like your tweaks. These sound like proper gusty chocolatey cupcakes – and I love subbing homemade yoghurt for sour cream whenever I can as well!
Thank you! They’re gutsy in flavour, without being dense, if that makes sense.. :)
They look everything a good chocolate cupcake should be, cute, chocolatey and most importantly moist. NOTHING is as bad as a dry cupcake that you thought would be a treat. Love this recipe and will be tucking it away to make for Stevie-boy and his lunchbox of great emptiness over the next few days. Course I won’t need ALL of that dark chocolate now…some of it might just be able to be sidelined into narf77 methinks ;)
I’m sure these would go well in the lunchbox of great emptiness, providing Steve doesn’t end up with an entire box of smeared icing! :)
I dare say he would be licking the lunchbox of great emptiness if I filled it with your delicious cupcakes Celia. He has learned a LOT from the dogs ;)
Very grateful for this recipe Celia. I’m not a huge cupcake fan – but my daughter is and has been asking for chocolate ones recently. This recipe makes me want to cook them too, really like the inclusion of yoghurt especially. So hopefully we’ll both be very happy.
Andrea, these are the least annoying cupcakes I’ve ever made or eaten. Does that make sense? :) Although Ruby might also like butterfly cakes…
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2010/09/02/chocolate-butterfly-cakes/
I’m a bit over cupcakes too and I really don’t want to see any more wedding cakes made from tiered cupcakes. I love how you’ve decorated these and I’m believe you when you say this recipe is a winner xx
Charlie, I have huge admiration for the folks who make cupcake wedding cakes – I can’t think of anything more tedious than filling and then icing hundreds of cupcakes! :)
I love Greek yoghurt in cakes – it keeps them so moist – and that icing looks divine
Thank you! We now sub Greek yoghurt for all sour cream, and haven’t had a single instance where it hasn’t worked!
Yum. I’m not over cupcakes yet so anyone who is can forward theirs to my house. These look so good and the yoghurt in them sounds delicious! Just the perfect adult twang.
I’ll put it on the list of things to bake for Maureen when she comes to visit.. :)
Oh, Celia, I’m so glad I discovered your blog. The things I learn from these beautifully detailed posts are fabulous. I did smile about Pete’s “too cutesy” comment, that is the price for an all male household! There are times though when small is beautiful and the sight of an abundance of lickably luscious cupcakes could tip some of us over the edge:)
Jan, you say the nicest things, thank you! :) I’m glad you discovered my blog too, or we’d never have met.. xxx
Looks amazing – party perfect!
Christina
http://www.foodiewithalife.com
Thank you! They did end up being eaten at one of Pete’s birthday celebrations… :)
I loved Mandy’s piping tutorial, and I don’t think your efforts look at all tragic! you should see mine………… on second thoughts better not!
Isn’t it a clever tute? I learnt very early on that piping chocolate icing through a smooth round nozzle results in frosting that looks suspiciously like dog poop. Needless to say, I’ve used a star nozzle ever since.. :)
Ah, now you’re killing me darling. I love cupcakes but I rarely make them or even cakes since my husband & I just never seem to finish them off. I suppose if I were smart I’d freeze some & these look so beautifully done, I have to say I might just polish them off.
These look very rich indeed Celia, the dark chocolate makes them very appealing! Tell Pete that cute is ok once in a while, as long as it’s not style over substance :) xox
I’m crazy over cupcakes and these look so good. :D