Food Network: Lilac-or Chocolate-Topped Cupcakes

	Print 3x5 Recipe Cards
	Print this recipe out and cut along the dotted lines to add this 3x5 recipe card to your personal collection.

Lilac-or Chocolate-Topped Cupcakes
Recipe courtesy Nigella Lawson, 2007

Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
3/4 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup very soft unsalted butter
7 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Few tablespoons whole milk

For the icing:
Approximately 1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted, or instant royal icing
1 to 2 tablespoons water

Food coloring paste, I'm using Grape Violet
Gold chocolate button (or any candy coated chocolate)
1 recipe Chocolate Ganache, recipe follows

Special equipment: 1 (12-cup) cupcake pan or 3 (12-cup) mini-cupcake pans with
appropriately sized paper baking cups

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

For the cupcakes:
Put all the ingredients for the cupcakes except the milk into a food processor and
blitz furiously. Then pour in the milk, and process again until you have a smooth

batter. Divide the mixture between either the big muffin pans or the 3 small
pans.

Cook the big cupcakes for about 15 to 20 minutes, and the small ones for about 10
minutes, although you might need to keep a closer eye on the little ones. Cool
the cupcakes on a wire rack.

For the icing:
To ice the mini-cupcakes, mix the confectioners' sugar with a tablespoon or 2 of
water from a recently boiled kettle or cold water (according to package
instructions) for instant royal icing until you have a smooth, spreadable paste.
In both cases add water slowly: you don't want this runny, and nothing is more
irritating than having to start sifting more sugar. The merest, tiniest blob of
food-coloring paste- in this case, as I said, Grape Violet - will be enough to

bring a dizzy and rich-toned intensity to the proceedings; you can always add more
coloring if you want, but again the important thing is to guard against having to
do any more sifting. And if you have been too heavy-handed and landed yourself
with a batch of unusable dark icing, then just make up some more plain white icing
and add to tone down.

Slice any peaking humps off the tops of the cakes with a sharp knife and then
pour, from a dunked-in spoon, the icing over each cake until the tops are thickly
and smoothly covered. Let stand for a couple of minutes until the icing has set a
tiny bit and then dot a gold button or other decoration of your choice on top.

Chocolate Ganache:

7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, with a minimum 70 percent cocoa solids, chopped,
or use chocolate buttons
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream

Put both ingredients in a saucepan and, over low heat, cook until the chocolate's
melted. Whisk together with handheld mixer or electric whisk (for ease and
preference), watching the mixture become thick and glossy. Spoon and smooth over
your waiting cupcakes. . Let stand for a couple of minutes until the icing has
set a tiny bit and then decorate in whatever way you want.

Yield: enough to ice 12 normal-sized cupcakes