I've finally Cracked it!

A think I thought today was that I love the sweet smell of success and today the smell has certainly been just that!

I had decided to make some chocolate nest cupcakes for the girls I work with for Easter, however my icing expertise was limited to various flavours of buttercream.  I love buttercream and with a bit of lemon, orange, lime, vanilla, mint it is extra yummy. I have however yet to master the chocolate flavour! Many disasters have befallen my chocolate icing attempts in the past and I had given up on making any form of chocolate topping,  that is until today!

After an extensive internet search I found a hummingbird bakery  recipe for chocolate buttercream! Having a sticky and battered copy of the hummingbird book at home I thought all my Christmases had come at once! I love hummingbird bakery recipes.  Apart from the sometimes excessive amounts of ingredients, I have yet to make a recipe that is not delicious. This recipe however was surprisingly simple.

So after a stressful day in work I headed off to the local supermarket to gather the missing stock cupboard ingredients ingredient! Dark chocolate! 

My car flew me home as fast as could be and much to the amusement of Mr and Miss D I breezed in the house, flung on my apron and said “lets bake!”  An unusual occurrence as I usually flop on the sofa declaring myself “knackered”

Baking done, I started on the icing, I was slightly worried about adding warm chocolate to butter icing but it worked. After some fast beating I had a glossy chocolately icing that looked (and tasted) delicious! Better still it was simple to make.  My nemesis has been beaten.

Chocolate icing is the new vanilla (well for now at least) anyhow just in  case there are any cupcakers out there like me who cannot produce a decent chocolate icing here is the recipe

350g dark chocolate

225g butter @ room temperature

2 tsp milk

I tsp vanilla essence

250g icing sugar

Melt the chocolate and leave to cool

Beat the butter, sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth

Add the melted chocolate and beat until the right consistency

*top tip* just keep beating it does thicken up!