Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

One last cupcake recipe before I leave them for the world of dieting (BOO! HISS!) - my chocolate orange cupcakes. I only have a bad, blurry iPhone photo of these bad boys as they were eaten very, very quickly. Even the Big Guy had a few and he's not a cake eater usually. Again, the icing can make more than you actually use depending on how thick you lay it on. I currently have a small half jar of it in the fridge that I'm trying not to eat with a spoon...


Makes: 36 mini cupcakes or 12-14 cupcakes (I made 24 minis and 6 normal - yes I know there's only 20 minis in the photo - the other 4 were eaten as they were iced. They're THAT BLOODY GOOD!)

Ingredients
For the cupcake mix
150g/5.5oz unsalted butter, softened
75g/2.75oz plain chocolate
250g/9oz caster sugar
5 large eggs
150g/5.5oz plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
Grated rind of 2 oranges

For the icing
550g/1lb icing sugar
160g/5.6oz unsalted butter, softened
50ml orange juice
50g/1.75oz cocoa powder
Grated rind of 1 orange

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Line an appropiate sized tin with the paper cases of the size cupcakes you wish to make (i.e. muffin tin lined with muffin cases). Melt the chocolate in a heatproof dish set over a simmering pan of water (or in the microwave making sure you don't allow it to burn). Once melted set aside and allow to cool slightly (but not become solid).
2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs. Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixture and fold together with a metal spoon.
3. Fold the orange rind into the mixture. Check that your chocolate has cooled, then add it to your mixture and fold in again.
4. Divide the batter between the cases, filling each one to about two-thirds full. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes (less if you're making the mini cupcakes) or until risen and springy to the touch (a skewer poked through the middle of one should come out clean). Leave to cool slightly in the tin before removing to a wire rack and allowing to cool fully (this is very important as otherwise the icing will melt and run off them).
5. While the cakes are cooling you can make the icing. Whisk together the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter in a clean bowl until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the orange juice and zest and whisk at a high speed for several minutes until light and fluffy (the longer you whisk the fluffier the icing you'll get).
6. Divide the icing between the cold cupcakes. 

You could decorate the tops with little orange sweets, edible orange glitter, candied orange peel or pieces of Terry's Chocolate Orange if you're really feeling decadent! Mine sadly didn't last long enough to properly decorate and photograph nicely... I will be making them again (for a party or something, not for us to sit down and eat on our own in an evening!) and will decorate them properly then and update the photo!