Chocolate Mud and Oreo Cupcakes by Mandy Wrangles

Oh, my. Chocolate on chocolate on chocolate. And cookies! This was a new recipe I tried out just over the weekend, and it’s pretty safe to say I’ll be making these cupcakes again, especially if my kids have any say in it… ~Mandy Wrangles

What you’ll need:

About 24 cupcake cases

200g of chopped butter

160g dark cooking chocolate. I used Cadbury melts brand.

A quarter of a cup of water

2 tbs cocoa powder

1 tbs instant coffee

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup caster (superfine) sugar

3 eggs (best if they’re room temperature)

Three-quarters of a cup of sifted, Self Raising flour

How it’s done:

Pre heat your oven to 150 C, and set out the cupcake cases.

In a small saucepan, over low heat, melt together the butter, chocolate, cocoa, coffee and vanilla. Use a whisk to bring it together until it’s smooth. Don’t let the mixture boil. Remove from heat and let it cool for 15 minutes.

While your chocolate mix is cooling, use electric beaters to mix together the sugar and eggs until they’re pale and creamy. Then add the chocolate mixture, a little at a time. Once it’s all combined, add the flour slowly and mix.

Pour the mixture to fill the cupcake cases to just over halfway and bake for aprox. 30 minutes. This will vary from oven to oven. The best way to tell if your mudcakes are done is to insert a skewer into the middle of one of the cakes. If it comes out clean – you’re done.

Remove from the oven and let cupcakes cool completely before decorating.

To decorate, you’ll need:

Vanilla buttercream mixture

Chocolate buttercream mixture (yes, you can make your own, but the commercial brands are delicious and make life SO much easier. I use the Betty Crocker brand. Whoever said it wasn’t okay to cheat in the kitchen?)

Pack of miniature ‘Oreo’ cookies.

Piping bag and large ‘star’ nozzle.

Bring vanilla buttercream to room temperature.

Put aside two Oreo cookies for each cake, and add the left overs to a small snap-lock plastic bag. Seal the bag and smash the cookies with a rolling pin until they’re a fine grain. You can use a blender to do this, but it’s way more fun to smash stuff! Make sure the grains of cookie are small enough that they won’t clog your piping nozzle. Mix the cookie grains through the vanilla buttercream and pop in the fridge for 5 or 10 mins.

While the vanilla and cookie buttercream chills, add the chocolate buttercream to your icing bag and pipe a ‘base’ of chocolate over the entire cake. Once they’re all done, remove the vanilla/cookie flavour from the fridge and pipe a small swirl on top, adding the saved Oreo cookies for garnish.