Night and Day Cupcakes

I made these for a large family feast – cupcakes are great when you have a crowd. They’re rather basic, but tasty – a flavorful, moist cake base with a not-too-sweet frosting. I tripled the cupcake recipe, and ended up with an absolute truckload. I think I had well over 30 large cupcakes, and 30 more miniature ones. I ended up not frosting all of them, but giving away a dozen right away, and putting some in the freezer. I doubled the frosting recipe, and it still made too much. So, feel free to fiddle with the quantities... and rest assured, it makes a lot.

Night and Day cupcakes
From Nigella Lawson’s How To Be a Domestic Goddess

2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp boiling water
75 g sugar
50 g dark muscovado sugar
125 g flour
3 g baking powder
2 large eggs
125 very soft butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400F). Mix the cocoa to a paste with the boiling water and set aside while you make the cupcake mixture.

Put the sugars, flour, eggs, and butter and vanilla in the processor and blitz to combine smoothly.

Scrape the mixture from the sides and add the cocoa paste. Blitz, and add milk down the funnel. You might need a little more milk – batter should be soft, and drop easily off a spoon.

Drop spoonfuls into the paper baking cups in a muffin pan and bake for about 15 minutes. (For large ones - about 10 minutes for small ones.) An inserted cake tester should come out clean.

Leave to cool completely before frosting.


Frosting
200 g powdered sugar
100 g cream cheese
Juice of ½ lime
chocolate decorations, optional

Simply beat together cream cheese and powdered sugar until creamy. Add the lime. Frost the cupcakes, and decorate with dark chocolate, if you want to.

Natt och Dag-Muffins