Verdict: Chocolate cupcakes

They're a little disappointing. They're very like brownies, and are really rather edible, but I can't shake the feeling that they're not as good as the brownie recipe I've baked previously. I'd hoped they'd be more cakey than they are, but they're not enough like cakes to be cakes. But they're too much a halfway house between cake and brownie to be really good brownie either. It's good, but I'd rather have a good cake or a good brownie instead. I think if I'd not poked them and hadn't used any muscovado sugar, they'd have been lighter, airier and all around more cake-like, and that might be all that it would have taken. They're quite good, but they fall in a gap that doesn't really need filling.

It's cupcake time!

It's time for some cupcakes I feel. Only a small batch though, as I've only got one egg in at the moment.

Chocolate Cupcakes
Ingredients

• 55g Butter
• 50g Caster sugar
• 50g Muscavado sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1tsp Vanilla extract
  
• 50g Dark chocolate
• 55g Plain flour
• 1/2tsp Baking powder
• Splash of milk

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla.
3. Melt the chocolate and fold into the mixture.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder and gradually fold in to the mixture.
5. Let down with milk to dropping consistency.
6. Pour into cupcake moulds and bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes.

Here are the cupcakes ready for the oven. I think I should have added a little bit more milk, as the batter's a little thick.And here's the finished article. It's collapsed because remembering the recent volcano cake debacle, I got a bit scared partway through baking them and poked them all with a skewer to deflate them a bit. I hadn't expected them to collapse this much. Oops. Still looks pretty good though!