Halloween Chocolate Cola Cupcakes

The cupcakes are from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. I'm not going to win over any foodies by saying that I'm not a big fan of Nigella. That part at the end of every episode where she goes down to the 'larder' in her dressing gown and starts eating like she's in a Snoop Dog video is just too cheesy for my tastes. But I won't fault her on these cupcakes! The batter is very light (so much so I was sure I had added too much liquid) and this gives a lovely moist cupcake. The cola flavour is subtle, but a nice additional to the traditional chocolate cupcake. She makes a glaze but I didn't bother and just served with a traditional buttercream coloured black and my halloween decorations that I've been blogging about the last few days. Pretty cute I think!

For the cupcakes
125g unsalted butter
250g golden caster sugar
2tbsp cocoa
175ml coca cola
200g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg lightly beaten
125ml buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1. Heat the butter gently until almost melted. Add the cocoa powder and cola and warm gently until all the butter is melted. Whisk quite rigorously until combined, the cocoa powder especially will take some whisking to incorporate.
2. Sieve the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and add the salt. Mix to combine.
3. In a jug mix the buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract together.
4. Add both sets of wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Make sure all the flour is incorporated but don't overbeat.
5. Pour into cupcake cases and bake for 15 minutes at 190oC fan oven or until a skewer comes out clean.

Buttercream
40g butter softened
200g icing sugar sieved
1 tbsp coca cola
Blob of black food colouring

Method:

Beat all the ingredients together with an electric whisk until the icing is creamy and there are no lumps of butter (about 3-4 minutes, you really cannot overbeat). You may need to add a tbsp more of cola if there is still dry icing sugar inthe bowl but beat well before you make any additions. The icing may seem too dry but after beating it may be the right consistency.