Mint Choc Chip Cupcakes
Looking at holiday brochures recently really got me thinking about summer. Warm weather, bright clothes and of course, ice cream. Ever since I first tried ice cream as a child, my favourite has always been mint choc chip. I don’t know what it is but I just find the mint and dark chocolate flavour combination absolutely perfect!
As it’s still a little cold to be walking round with an ice cream cone (I’m currently still wearing gloves most days), I thought I’d put the flavour combo in one of my cupcake creations.
Give it a try!
Ingredients – Cake
- 200g butter
- 200g caster sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
- 200g self-raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 50g cocoa powder
Ingredients – Buttercream
- 170g butter
- 2-3 tsp peppermint extract
- 450g icing sugar
- Blue food colouring / gel / powder
Step 1
Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees (fan).
Line a cupcake baking tray with 12 cake cases.
Step 2
Mix the eggs, sugar, butter and peppermint extract in a bowl using a hand whisk, electric whisk or stand mixer.
Step 3
Sift the self-raising flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into the mixture and mix together.
I use the figure of 8 technique here when mixing by hand.
Step 4
Fill 2/3 of the cupcake cases with the cake mixture and bake for between 12 and 18 minutes. Mine took 16 minutes.
Step 5
Once baked, allow the cupcakes to cool for approximately 30 minutes. Remember to check they’re cooked through with a cake tester before removing from the oven.
Step 6
While the cupcakes are cooling, add 170g of butter to a clean bowl.
Step 7
Whisk the butter for at least 5 minutes. Add the peppermint extract and whisk for another minute. You might want to add just 2 tsp at this stage and add the 3rd later to suit your taste (I like really minty frosting).
Step 8
Sift the icing sugar and whisk together in stages. This will help you to achieve a really smooth buttercream but will also help to limit those icing sugar clouds!
Step 9
Once whisked, your buttercream should be a very light colour and smooth consistency, but still able to hold it’s shape.
Place 2 tsp in a separate small bowl.
Step 10
Mix a small amount of blue food colouring into the buttercream in the small bowl.
Step 11
Mix the food colouring and the buttercream until you achieve a really strong and concentrated colour. Including this step will help the colour to spread more evenly through your whole mixture.
Step 12
Add the colour concentrated buttercream to your large mixture and whisk together until the mixture is fully combined. If you want a darker colour, simply follow steps 9-12 again.
Step 13
Using an open star piping nozzle, pipe a ‘classic swirl’ onto each cupcake. Add a small amount of dark chocolate chips to the top of each and your cupcakes are finished!
