Chocolate Mint Cupcakes – After Eight Style
·Preheat the oven
Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Prepare a muffin tin and line it with paper cupcake cases.
Heat the butter, cocoa and coffee
Put the butter, cocoa and a cup of coffee into a small saucepan and heat over medium heat. Keep stirring until the butter melts and everything comes together into a smooth mixture. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar and baking soda. Once thoroughly mixed, add the butter mixture and stir until smooth and all the ingredients are fully combined.
Add the remaining ingredients
Finally, add the eggs and sour cream, along with grated chocolate plus larger chunks of After Eight, and torn mint leaves. Mix once more until you have a smooth batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes. Test with a skewer to check they're done.
Let them cool
Once baked, let the cupcakes cool completely while you prepare a wonderful chocolate cream. It's called ganache, and it's simple to make yet absolutely perfect in flavour!
Heat the cream
Pour the cream into a saucepan and place it on the stove. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally so it doesn't catch on the bottom.
Stir in the chocolate
Once it's come to the boil, remove the saucepan from the heat and add the finely chopped chocolate and After Eight into the cream. Leave undisturbed for 5 minutes, then whisk by hand into a smooth, glossy chocolate mixture.
Let it set
Now just stir occasionally until it has completely cooled. As it cools, the cream will thicken; towards the end you can pop it in the fridge to make it easier to work with.
Decorate
Once the chocolate cream is ready and chilled, fill it into a piping bag and pipe it onto the cooled, prepared cupcakes.
