Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Made these cupcakes for a girlie night in, thought they would be a nice change from the usual chocolate cupcakes and wanted to see how this would be.

The recipe is the same as the normal chocolate cupcake recipes except that you add hot chocolate powder to warm milk rather than sifting cocoa powder into the dry ingredients. Essentially making the batter up with actual hot chocolate.

It was a simple step to add into the otherwise normal procedure. Everything went smoothly with this attempt although I do think my electric scales are starting to give up the ghost. Work fine most of the time but do occasionally mess around and show a weight when there isn't anything on them. Also constantly showing that the battery is low when its been replaced recently..another thing that needs to be replaced soon I think, before they give up completely and I am stuck stranded on my baking island.

I did run out of muffin cases so only managed to make 15 cupcakes as that is all I had. They did rise quite a bit as had slightly more batter in each case due to the lack of a 16th. Made up the icing, which again uses hot chocolate powder dissolved in warm milk and added to the main icing ingredients. I used half the quantity as usual and made enough to give a nice but not overwhelming covering. It could have maybe done with a little more but I think if made up the correct recipe amount it would have been too much. The icing smelt so good when I was making it. Noticed the colouring of the sponge and the icing is slighter than the normal chocolate cupcakes. Guessing that is down to the milk being premixed with the powder.

The girls couldn't wait to taste them and I had to fight them off until my camera battery had charged enough to take the pictures first.

They went down extremely well. Everyone, including my hubby who doesn't usually like cupcakes with the icing, said they were brilliant. You could taste the difference from using actual hot chocolate. Can't put my finger on how the taste does differ from the chocolate cupcakes but believe me there is something there. I did wonder before making the recipe how this would turn out but they are lovely, I think this might become one of my favourites too.