Blackberry Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Icing

There is a cupcake shop in the town I live in. And I always pass it drooling and craving for one of these. They just look so pretty and their icing… mmmhmm. But… they are super expensive. I mean, I can get a small meal for that price. So I don’t buy them very often.

But last Saturday my girls (I actually mean friends, not children 😉 ) stopped by for a girls night in. So I had the perfect opportunity to try and make some cupcakes myself.

I don’t actually know why, but making cupcakes myself always scared me. I guess it maybe is because I have virtually no experience with piping and a big appeal of cupcakes are their looks, and still they taste lovely. I think that is also why I don’t really like cupcakes decorated with fondant. I honestly don’t know any person who eats that stuff, it is just wonderful for decorating. But for me, it has to taste as well.

I found this recipe on Pinterest. Do you know Pinterest? If not, off you go check it out now. The sheer abundance of recipes and ideas there is absolutely amazing and these cupcakes just really looked their part. Absolutely amazing. So I had the perfect recipe to share with my friends.

The creator of the original recipe is Juicy and it can be found on completerecipes.com.

So the piping didn’t quite go to plan. But I am almost proud that it looks piped and not just slapped. I need lots of practice still, but it is definitely a start.

I would really like to try Jennie’s Chocolate and Baileys Cupcakes next. They just looks so scrumptious, and I am sure mine won’t look that pretty, but I can’t get better if I don’t try. Right? 🙂 So go check them out at Jennie’s blog. Yum, yum.

Blackberry Chocolate Cupcakes wit Vanilla Icing

• Servings: 12
• Time: 45mins
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Ingredients Cake
60g Cocoa powder
175g Caster sugar
175g Butter
120g Self-raising flour
3 Eggs
3 tbsp Boiling water
100g Blackberries
1 tsp Baking powder

Ingredients icing
250g Icing sugar
250g Butter, soft
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 tbsp Milk

Directions for the cake:
1. Mix the cocoa powder and water in a bowl until smooth.
2. Add the butter and sugar and mix until smooth.
3. Add the eggs one at a time.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture.
5. Combine and add the blackberries as carefully as possible.

Directions for the icing:
1. Combine the soft butter with the butter.
2. Once well mixed add the other ingredients and put aside until the cakes are ready.

Prepare 12 muffin cases with one blackberry each in the middle and spoon the batter on top of them. Bake in the preheated oven at 190° for about 13 minutes. Once cooled pipe the icing onto them and place a spare blackberry on the top.

They were really good and actually because of the icing I left them in the fridge overnight and they were even much better the next day. I must admit, the very first bite felt quite sweet. I suppose the icing is just made with sweet ingredients. But leaving them to rest for a day, they really came together. The original recipe was with raspberries but since I didn’t have any at hand and the lovely blackberries just started to be in season, I opted for the dark option. It was quite a good idea. Since the icing was very sweet, the sourness of the blackberries counterparted the sweetness and it worked very well.

Right, although this was just a piping experiment, they were tasty and I will bring them over to Angie’s Fiesta Friday. Oh it is so inspiring and amazing to see other bloggers offerings every week and I do so enjoy this party. So many absolutely scrumptious dishes and bakes. I can’t describe it, you just have to go and see for yourselves. Happy Friday and feliz Viernes.