Friday, May 16, 2014

Chocolate cupcake with nutella swiss meringue buttercream ^^


This is a little surprise for my piggies. Mainly to celebrate Big pig finishing his AP exams.

My Big will be off to college in August.. and I'm still coming to terms with him leaving the coop so soon. He is, after all, my first love.. pure and unconditional.. and at first sight too. I'm a little sad.. a little.. Someone just told me not to cry when he leaves.. I will try my best. I have a pretty loose crying duct.

Moist chocolate cake (adapted from Agnes Chang, let's eat)
~ makes 12 cupcakes & a 6-inch round cake
220g sugar (it's perfect for me at 180g ^^) 
250ml milk
1 tsp instant coffee
250g unsalted butter
3 eggs
135g plain flour
60g cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
some nutella, optional

1. Place sugar, milk and instant coffee in a saucepan and heat till sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat. Add butter and stir till melted. Leave to cool.

2. Fold in eggs one at a time into the cooled milk mixture. Or use egg separation method for bouncy light cakes!

3. Sift flours and cocoa powder together and mix into the egg mixture.

4. Pour into cupcake liners and bake at 170C for 25 minutes. Or a greased cake tin for 40-45 minutes, or till skewer comes out clean.

5. When the cupcakes are cool, fill cake with nutella (place in piping bag with nozzle) by pushing the piping nozzle into the centre of the cake and pipe in filling.. this is optional ^^ Spread leftover nutella jam on cake if you like ^^


Nutella swiss meringue buttercream (adapted from the cakemerchant)
~ frosts 12 cupcakes
3 egg whites
75g sugar
227g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup nutella

1. Put egg whites and sugar in a heat-proof bowl over a pan/pot of simmering water (without bottom of bowl touching the water). Whisk egg whites and sugar till sugar melts (rub mixture between fingers, if mixture is no longer grainy (smooth) to the touch, it's ready ^^). Remove from heat.

2. Whisk egg whites mixture till white, fluffy and glossy for about 10 minutes.

3. Add diced butter bit by bit into the mixture. If mixture curdles, just continue whisking till it all comes together again. It always does, just be patient ^^.

4. Add vanilla extract and nutella till well combined. Place in the fridge if buttercream is too soft, and beat for a bit if it's too stiff straight out from chilling.


These cupcakes are inspired by rima@bisouatoi ~ I saw her gorgeous chocolate cupcakes with nutella swiss meringue buttercream and a piece of ferrero rocher chocolate on facebook ~ and I knew these would be perfect for piggies! Never mind that all my piggies are not that big on chocolate desserts.. they are sure to fall for the ferrero rocher trick! Haha!

I haven't made anything fancy or frosting for some time.. I hope piggies will like this treat ^^


4 comments:

Mel said...

You wont believe it.....just second ago I was wwondering how come you have not been baking dessert lately as no posting to your blog? Mmm...maybe you are on diet as I thought! Wanted to whatsapp and ask you. And ...the next minute saw your new post up. What a good treat chocolate cake!! So inviting and tempting for a piece now. I guess the topping caramel is to die for. Love the cupcakes with the ferrero on top. So, i guess with this chocolate cake, mmm....you are not on diet. Hehehehe......

hui said...

Haha, you are so funny, mel! You can tell I'm on a dier! I'm so obvious aren't I? Haha..

I've been trying to diet really.. but it's not like I haven't been baking. Just repeating some favorites and also made sonia's golden sponge cake. Alas I damaged the cake while trying to remove it from the tin.. I really need to learn to be more patient ^^ll anyways it still tasted good with a beautiful spongy texture ^^

Lynna said...

These look beautiful!!

Haha, don`t worry!! As a college graduate student, know that your son will miss and think about you when he is away in college!

hui said...

Thanks, lynna.. that's comforting. But then he's a boy.. so it's harder to tell if he'll miss home all that much.. perhaps I can only hope that when he has desserts and cheesecakes, he'll think of his aunt over here ^^