Vanilla and Milk Chocolate Cupcakes

These are pretty insane!  Light, fluffy and full of flavour.  They are perfect for a kids party as they don’t contain nuts, too much sugar and are gluten-free using Doves GF flour.  You can swap the GF flour for spelt if you like or normal flour and then add 1/2 tablespoon of baking powder to the dry ingredients.  I made them for a kids birthday on Friday and they went down a storm.  Also, I used muffin cases which are bigger than fairy cases.

GF

Makes about 25 cupcakes

Ingredients:

For the sponge

7 1/2 medium eggs

225g unrefined caster sugar

60g cornflour

120g gluten-free flour

Seeds from 1 vanilla pod/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the vanilla icing

500g mascarpone cheese (room temperature)

Seeds from 1 vanilla pod/2 tsp vanilla extract

100g unrefined icing sugar

100g unsalted soft butter

For the milk chocolate icing, broken into pieces

300g milk chocolate  (Belgium is good, I used Green and Blacks)

100g unsalted soft butter

30g unrefined icing sugar

2-3 tbsp coco powder

280g mascarpone cheese (room temperature)

Strawberries for decorating

How to Make Your GF Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 170 degrees and line two muffin trays with muffin cases.  Add the eggs, sugar and vanilla seeds or extract to an electric mixer and beat at a fast speed.  Mix until the eggs have gone pale and when the whisk is pulled up the mix should leave a trail.  It takes a good 7ish minutes to be light and fluffy. 

Then sieve the two flours together and use a large metal spoon to sprinkle some of the flour mix into the beaten egg batter.   Gently stir the flour in so that it is well mixed before adding in a little more flour.  Be sure to slowly fold and mix properly stirring from the bottom of the bowl to the top.  You have to be very light of hand at this stage.  

Continue until all the flour is incorporated and then spoon the batter into the muffin cases.  It’s usually around 2 large tablespoons of batter per case leaving a good 1cm gap from the top.  Then place any leftover batter in the fridge and bake the 24 cupcakes for about 13-15 minutes.  They should have risen and be light and springy to touch and when a skewer is inserted it should come out clean.  You can give them a few extra minutes if you think they need it.  Then remove them from the tray and onto a cooling rack and cook another batch if you have any leftover batter.

While they are baking you can make the icing.  For the chocolate icing, carefully melt 190g of the milk chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water and then leave it to one side when melted. 

In a mixer beat the butter, icing sugar and coco powder together for a few minutes before slowly pouring in a little of the cooled melted chocolate.  Beat the melted chocolate in and continue adding a little at a time until you finish the chocolate.  Now add the mascarpone and beat everything together until light and fluffy for about 2 minutes.  Add this mix to a bowl, clean the mixer and begin with the vanilla cream.  Add the butter, icing sugar and vanilla together to the mixing bowl and beat for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.  Add the mascarpone to the butter and beat together for a minute.  Taste to check the seasoning adding in more vanilla to taste.

When the cupcakes have cooled you can ice the tops.  I decorated the vanilla ones with strawberry halves with a dusting of icing sugar to make them shiny.  For the milk chocolate, I created chocolate shavings with the leftover chocolate by dragging my knife towards me over the chocolate to create delicate swirls.

The sponge will keep well in a sealed container overnight and you can just ice the tops just before you need them!