Mint Choco chip Cupcakes Recipe

Step 1:

Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees (fan). Line a cupcake baking tray with 12 cake cases.

Step 2 :

Mix the eggs, sugar, butter and peppermint extract in a bowl using a hand whisk, electric whisk or stand mixer.

Step 3 :

Sift the self-raising flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into the mixture and mix together.

I use the figure of 8 technique here when mixing by hand.

Step 4 :

Fill 2/3 of the cupcake cases with the cake mixture and bake for between 12 and 18 minutes. Mine took 16 minutes.

Step 5 :

Once baked, allow the cupcakes to cool for approximately 30 minutes. Remember to check they’re cooked through with a cake tester before removing from the oven.

Step 6 :

While the cupcakes are cooling, add 170g of butter to a clean bowl.

Step 7 :

Whisk the butter for at least 5 minutes. Add the peppermint extract and whisk for another minute. You might want to add just 2 tsp at this stage and add the 3rd later to suit your taste (I like really minty frosting).

Step 8 :

Sift the icing sugar and whisk together in stages. This will help you to achieve a really smooth buttercream but will also help to limit those icing sugar clouds!

Step 9 :

Once whisked, your buttercream should be a very light colour and smooth consistency, but still able to hold it’s shape.

Place 2 tsp in a separate small bowl.

Step 10 :

Mix a small amount of blue food colouring into the buttercream in the small bowl.

Step 11 :

Mix the food colouring and the buttercream until you achieve a really strong and concentrated colour. Including this step will help the colour to spread more evenly through your whole mixture.

Step 12 :

Add the colour concentrated buttercream to your large mixture and whisk together until the mixture is fully combined. If you want a darker colour, simply follow steps 9-12 again.

Step 13 :

Using an open star piping nozzle, pipe a ‘classic swirl’ onto each cupcake. Add a small amount of dark chocolate chips to the top of each and your cupcakes are finished!