Best ever chocolate cupcake

Today is Mr I Heart Cupcakes birthday and as he is a total chocolate addict I decided to make him some double chocolate cupcakes. I originally thought of doing a boozy ganache to stuff them with, making them triple chocolate but thought that might be too much. (I can hear Manny screaming 'nooooooo' as he reads this).

The cakes are based on a recipe from Chocolate by Donna Hay and the frosting is from British Baking by Oliver Peyton.

These are definitely the best chocolate cupcakes I've ever made and went down a treat for Manny's birthday breakfast this morning - they were incredibly moist, very chocolaty and the frosting was amazing!

Happy Birthday Manny!

Baking cupcakes...Donna Hay style

So Donna Hay is the Australian Queen of Cupcakes and some time ago I bought a couple of her cupcake mixes. Today, while mooching around the house I decided to make the Lemon and Coconut one - and although they don't look as great as the pics, they taste fab! The icing is a bit too buttery, even though I used the amount stated, I think maybe I've not blended it enough or something, or maybe they have more buttery cupcakes in Australia?? Who knows - all I know is that they are absolutely scrummy and I'm having to use a great deal of willpower to stop myself from walking to the kitchen and scoffing them! I added my own little touch with some neon yellow glitter to them! You can see in the last pic how shiny the frosting is - it's like its pure butter or something - I'm letting them "set" a bit to see how they go! Don't think I'll be using my icing pump thing again either - I could've made them prettier without it! And I definitely need a bigger baking tin!

I really like the coconut lemon base of the cakes - will definitely be checking her magazine (I read it in Starbucks/Borders when I go there for my monthly read of glossies I don't want to buy!) and her books for the batter recipe!

And next time I'll be making my own cakes from scratch - I was going to today but at the end of the month I cant' really justify spending £7 on vanilla extract!

Donna Hay cupcake set

Just when I thought I couldn't cram anything else cupcake into my weekend I popped into our local Sainsburys and lo and behold fancy cupcake mix by Donna Hay! There were two flavours, chocolate and lemon and coconut! Not wanting to be greedy I just bought one for now but will be going back next weekend to get the choclate one I'm sure! I've had a look on her website http://www.donnahay.com/ to see if there are any other flavours but unfortunately it doesn't have any info - so I've mailed Sainsburys..me obsessed??!

I shall try and resist making them till the end of the month, when my self-imposed cupcake ban is over, and post pics once I've done them - hope they look as cute as on the box! I love the tag-line on the box "cupcakes that are as cute as a button"...aren't ALL cupcakes cute though??