St Patrick’s cupcakes

These cupcakes are made using my Best ever chocolate cupcakes, but with a slightly different icing.

Here’s what you need for 12 cupcakes:

120 grams of self raising flour

180 grams of caster sugar

60 grams of good quality cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1tsp baking soda

1 egg

120 g/130ml of sunflower oil

1 tsp vanilla paste

75 ml/g of milk

150 ml/g boiling water

You can make these cupcakes dairy free, if so just skip the milk and add 225 ml of boiling water instead of 150 ml. I can assure you i will taste just as good:)

For the icing:

60 grams of butter

300 grams of icing sugar

1 tbsp of boiling water

1 tsp vanilla paste

100 grams of cream cheese

Green food colouring gel

Place 12 cupcake cases in a cupcake tin. Turn the oven on 175 degrees/160 fan.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Put to the side.

Measure the oil in a jug. Add the egg, milk (if using) and vanilla paste and mix around until thick and smooth. Pour it into the the dry ingredients and whisk around until all ingredients are mixed together, there might be some lumps but that’s fine. The batter will be quite thick.

Boil the water and mix it with the other ingredients. You’ll now have a smooth, quite runny paste.

Pour the batter into the cupcake cases. For less spillage, you can first pour the batter into a big jug before adding it to the cases. Or use a soup ladle.

Bake for about 18 minutes. If making mini cupcakes, bake for 5-7 min.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

How to make the icing

Mix the soft butter, icing sugar, water and vanilla paste together until smooth, using a stand mixer or electric whisk. You might need to add a bit more water. I find that on cold days, it’s hard to get the butter really soft, so you might need more boiling water. But only add a few drops at a time.

Add the cream cheese and keep mixing for a few minutes until you have a smooth and light icing. Mix in the green food colouring until you have the colour you want.

Using a piping bag a your preferred nozzle, pipe the icing on the cupcakes (make sure they’ve completely cooled down).

Add some shamrock or clover leaves if you have in the garden.

Ideal for as an afternoon treat on St. Patrick’s Day ☘️

You can also choose to decorate your cupcakes like this. If so simply divide the icing into 3 equal parts, leave one as it is, colour one part green and the other orange.

For the shamrock: spread some white icing onto the cupcake. Place the green icing into a piping bag. Cut a very small hole in the top of the icing bag. Pipe the green icing in the shape of a shamrock on top of the white icing.

For the flag: simply spread a little bit of white icing in the middle using a spoon. Then the green icing in the left and the orange on the right of the white icing to create an Irish flag.