Chocolate Butter Cupcakes

It’s free choice time with the Heavenly Cake Bakers catch-up group. This week I decided on Chocolate cupcakes, with the golden neoclassic buttercream. One of my teammates at work mentioned something related to cupcakes on Friday, so I figured that would be a good choice for something to bring in to work on Monday (today). The buttercream was chosen because I ran into the Lyle’s golden syrup at the grocery store a little while back, and I haven’t had a good opportunity to try out the golden neoclassic buttercream since purchasing it. I’ve always just used corn syrup.

Let’s bake!

The batter for these cupcakes is Rose’s classic chocolate butter cake, using her mixing method.

Start by mixing the dry ingredients, including the sugar. Add the butter and a cocoa paste. Beat for a minute and a half.

Add the egg/vanilla/water mixture in 2 additions, beating for 30 seconds after each one, then portion out into cupcake tins.

While these were cooling, I went outside to check on my garden progress and do a little bit of weeding. As long as I can get to them before the squirrels, birds and bunnies do, I think I’m going to have an over-abundance of strawberries. The first picture is about a 2 foot by 5 foot section along a fence. These were from runners from my aunt a couple of years ago. Last summer I pinched off all the flowers and runners. This summer… well, I hope to reap the rewards.

This next picture is a patch of ever-bearing, so while they don’t have quite as many fruit set at the moment, they should produce a second round later in the summer.

So, after the gardening, I went back inside to work on the buttercream. I always have a hard time grabbing pictures of this process, because it’s such a time-sensitive thing. You make a hot sugar syrup (this one includes Lyle’s golden syrup), then beat it into egg yolks, then add butter a tablespoon at a time.

I didn’t feel like getting the piping bag out, so I just smeared the frosting on these cupcakes with an offset spatula. I left a couple of them unfrosted, because one of my friends at work is pregnant with twins, and I didn’t want her to feel left out or take any chances on the under cooked egg in the frosting.

Only 2 cupcakes came home, so I think they hit the spot. Apparently others are starting on the Monday baked goods trend, though, because one of my colleagues brought in some lovely scones from Herrle’s Market, and another had leftover cupcakes from their son’s birthday party. I might have to switch my baking to mid-week so I don’t have to compete for appetites. 😉

PS: Apparently, I made these and posted about them once before, but neglected to update my cake list. Here’s the link to the old post.