As you can imagine, I used the recent publication of my second book as an excuse for cake! KitKat chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

KitKats feature in my second book, Elle’s A to Z of Love, so I wanted to include them in my publication day celebrations. I found the recipe for these KitKat cupcakes at Crumbs & Corkscrews.

You can get a copy of Elle’s A to Z of Love here.

Ingredients (for 24 KitKat cupcakes – halve these quantities if you only want 12 cupcakes!)

• 100 g / 3.5 oz dark chocolate, broken into chunks
• 250 g / 8.8 oz butter or baking margarine
• 250 g / 8.8 oz light soft brown sugar
• 30 ml / 30 g soured cream
• 4 eggs (medium or large)
• 25 ml espresso coffee (don’t panic, you won’t be able to taste the coffee in the final cakes, it just enhances the chocolate flavour)
• 250 g / 8.8 oz self-raising flour
• 50 g / 1.8 oz cocoa powder
• 0.5 tsp baking powder
• 150 g / 5.3 oz KitKat fingers (approx. 12 fingers)

Decoration (for 24 KitKat cupcakes – halve these amounts if making 12 cupcakes)

• 200 g / 7 oz butter (at room temperature)
• 400 g / 14 oz icing sugar (sieved)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence/extract
• 24 KitKat fingers

Method

Put 24 cupcake cases in two deep cupcake baking trays or muffin trays. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C (160 degrees for fan)/350 degrees F/ Gas Mark 4.

Chop the KitKat fingers into small pieces about 0.5 cm in width or thinner. Like this:

Make the coffee and set to one side to cool.

Melt the dark chocolate. Put the pieces in a heatproof bowl and put in the microwave for 1 minute. Remove and stir. Put back in for another 30 seconds if all the chocolate hasn’t melted. Remove and stir until the chocolate is smooth. If you don’t have a microwave, put the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir the chocolate until it has melted. Put the chocolate to one side to cool down.

Beat the butter until it has softened. Use a stand mixer or electric hand beaters if you have them – beat for at least 3 minutes until the butter starts to pale. Add the brown sugar and beat again until light and fluffy – this usually takes at least 3 minutes. Add the soured cream and mix through.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition. Add the cooled coffee and stir through.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Add these dry ingredients to the wet and fold everything gently together until combined.

Finally, fold the pieces of KitKat through the mixture.

Spoon the KitKate chocolate cupcake mixture into the cupcake cases. You can use a ice cream scoop to make the amount you put in each case more even if you like.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the KitKat chocolate cupcakes have risen and a knife/skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean. Leave in the tin to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling completely while you make the vanilla buttercream.

For the buttercream: if you have electric hand beaters or a stand mixer use them to make your life easier! Beat the butter for 3-4 minutes until it starts to pale. Add the sifted icing sugar. If you have a cover for your mixer, use it so the icing sugar doesn’t go everywhere. Alternatively, start mixing slowly by hand until most of the icing sugar is combined with the butter before turning on the mixer. Beat for 4-5 minutes until smooth. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and stir through.

Either pipe or spoon buttercream into each cupcake. I piped a swirl of vanilla buttercream on to each KitKat chocolate cupcake using a piping bag fitted with a star tip.

Cut your KitKat fingers in half and push them into the buttercream. I had to trim mine a little shorter so they would stand up.

I had mini edible book covers printed (on a backing of sugar paste) which I then just pressed onto the buttercream 🙂

(You can get a copy of Elle’s A to Z of Love here.)

Store your KitKat chocolate cupcakes in an airtight container in a cool dry place and they’ll keep for 4-5 days. As with all baked goods, they’re best eaten as soon as possible after baking.

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If you’re looking for other cupcake recipes, you could try:

 

Caramel cupcakes with caramel buttercream.

 

 

 

 

 

Piñata cupcakes, baked using condensed milk.

 

 

 

 

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Claire Huston / Art and Soul